The Colonel and The Techie
by hydra350
Summary: An extra person is sent to the asteroid. She happens to be Ronald Quincy's best friend and the one that built and programmed the computers on the shuttles.
1. Chapter 1

The Colonel and The Techie

By Hydra350

Disclaimer: I am not even close to being on the same level as Michael Bay. I'm just playing with his toys for a little bit.

Summary: An extra person is sent to the asteroid. She happens to be Ronald Quincy's best friend and the one that built and programmed the computers on the shuttles.

Warnings: Slight crossover with Sherlock with an honorable subplot mention of the movie Masterminds.

Sharpe/OFC

Kathy McDaniels was born in England she had gotten a degree for computer engineering and biothermal aeronautical computers. Her two best friends growing up were Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. Kathy and Sherlock had dated when they were teenagers but when she went to college the relationship broke apart. They were still friends of course, but now that she worked for Sherlock's older brother Mycroft who headed MI5 they barely saw each other anymore.

Kathy had kept in contact with one of her good friends from the university by the name Ronald Quincy. Sherlock and Mycroft didn't want to admit it out loud, but they knew Ron was smarter than both of them combined and Kathy loved the man for it.

Meanwhile in America, they had received news that would change the world. An asteroid the size of Texas was heading right for Earth. First thing Ronald Quincy, Dan Truman and the rest of NASA figured was who was going to be the flight crews. They had contacted Nathan Gruber, Jennifer Watts, Maxwell Davis, Anthony Tucker, Timothy Halsey, and Willie Sharpe. They were briefed about what was happening and they kind of all paled in horror.

Ronald Quincy was looking at the space shuttle schematics and was biting at his top lip.

"Dan?" He called over while Dan was talking to everybody about a mission regarding a drilling crew. Truman motioned for everybody to wait a second as he walked over to Ron.

"Yeah Quince?" He asked and saw the worried look on his friend's face.

"The biothermal computers on the shuttles…?" Ron started and Truman's face fell in horror.

"No…to hell with that Quince! I'm NOT letting that woman anywhere NEAR NASA!" Dan shouted at the other man confusing everybody else in the room.

"Dan you know she's the only one that can do it faster than me." Ron informed his friend. Walter Clarke stood up from the table.

"If he's talking about McDaniels then I don't see how we have a choice Dan. She's faster than all of us with bilateral cross switches, including you."

"Son of a bitch…" Dan grumbled darkly and nodded in defeat. "Bring her in."

"Who is McDaniels?" Colonel Max Davis asked curiously.

"A computer technician." Walter informed them and the flight crew looked confused.

"Why would we need a Computer Tech?" Nathan Gruber asked and Ronald snorted in laughter.

"Considering she was the one that built the computers inside the X-71's, I would think she is the perfect choice." Ron informed the flight crew and their eyes widened slightly.

A few hours later Kathy McDaniels was escorted from England to Texas and they pulled up in front of the NASA Space Agency.

"Oh that's never good." She grumbled to herself.

"Kathy?"

She turned around and adjusted her laptop bag on her shoulder and hugged Ronald Quincy.

"Long time no see Quinn." Kathy greeted her friend and he blushed. "Aw you still blush when people call you Quinn!" Kathy grinned at him.

"Follow me Kathy."

Kathy followed Ronald along the hallways and she noticed a flight crew standing nearby and she briefly met the eyes of a blue-eyed man about half a foot taller than her. She readjusted her bag again and hurried to keep pace with Ronald.

"Be truthful Ron. I'm not going to like this meeting am I?" She asked and Ron sighed.

"Probably not."

"I give you points for honesty." They entered the main conference room.

The flight crew watched as this 'McDaniels' walked through the hallway. Willie Sharpe met the girl's eyes briefly and swallowed seeing the extremely green eyes. They were as bright as his blue ones.

"She looks too young to be the builder of the macs." Jennifer muttered darkly and Max Davis snorted in laughter.

"Don't let the looks fool you Jen. I read her file, she's 35 years old."

"Kind of hot for a computer nerd." Nathan Gruber admitted getting a glare from Sharpe.


	2. Meeting the Crew and Harry Stamper

About an hour later Dan Truman came storming out of the conference room in a pissed off mood. Will and the others shared a curious expression at seeing the normally calm man that irritated. Next Kathy McDaniels exited the room a little pale but slightly smirking at Ron.

"I ask you one thing Kath. Just ONE thing! Behave near Dan! AND YOU CAN'T EVEN DO THAT!"

"Come on it's not my fault he still hasn't forgiven me." Kathy pouted good naturedly.

"He's never going to forgive you! You don't just hack somebody's files and post their baby pictures all over NASA's website!"

"Oh my god that was you?" Tony Tucker asked with a grin. "That prank was legendary! Didn't realize it had been done half a planet away though!"

"Always nice to meet a fan Mister…?" Kathy asked with a grin.

"Tucker, Anthony Tucker."

"Did you just pull a James Bond reference just for me?" Kathy asked coyly and the lady that was standing with the crew hid a snort of laughter. Ron introduced the whole crew to Kathy and when it came to Sharpe she looked at him oddly. "I knew a Sharpe once, never met him though. You ever have complete computer failure in a T54 while over the English Channel?"

Will looked at her with a paling face before his cheeks tinged pink and nodded.

"Ah, thought so. I had to talk you through rebooting the whole system while you were flying. Good to know you're still flying."

"I've never seen Sharpe blush before." Nathan whispered to Tim Halsey who bit back a smirk.

"So Kathy how is that boy of yours?" Ronald asked and Kathy looked at him while the flight crew had looks of surprise. "Haven't seen Sherlock in about five years."

"Sherlock and I broke up Ron." Kathy admitted casually and Ron's face fell into a frown.

"When did that happen?"

"Oh, about five years ago."

"You never said anything." Ron frowned some more.

"Well we're still friends. He lives with John now and is a consultant detective for Scotland Yard." Kathy looked over at the flight crew. "So you yanks are the ones that get to play with my system? Liking it so far?"

"Yes ma'am." Colonel Max Davis nodded answering her.

"So Quinn, you need me to sync up the two shuttles, and cross them into two armadillos?"

"Basically, if you're up to it." Ron smirked at her and she scoffed.

"I'll sync them, cross them, and still have time to hack into all of their personal files before launch day." Kathy nodded her head towards the flight crew beside her.

"Don't forget you will have to do astronaut training with the drill teams, still think you can do all of that?" Ron asked her and Kathy bit her lip worriedly.

"How many roughnecks are coming?" She asked and Ron sighed.

"Seven of them."

"Great so we just completely got outnumbered Watts." Kathy informed the other female and Jennifer smiled secretly at her.

Ron showed Kathy where she could set up shop so she can get to work. Five hours later Dan Truman entered the hangar with a man and a younger girl. Ron trailed behind the three of them and Kathy approached the group.

"My guys will be here in a few hours." The man mentioned and Kathy realized this was the Harry Stamper that Ronald had told her about. "Ma'am." Harry greeted her first as soon as he saw her.

"Mister Stamper, Ms Stamper this is Kathryn McDaniels she is going to be the computer technician going up there."

"We already have people that know computers." Harry shrugged at the girl and she smirked.

"And I bet they also built the computers that are being used in the shuttles and being jacked into the armadillos?" She asked him and he frowned.

"English huh?" He questioned and shrugged. "At least you ain't Chinese, had enough of the Chinese to last me a few years." Harry paused then realized what she said. "You 'built' the computers?"

"I have double doctorates for computer engineering and biothermal aeronautical computers." Kathy informed him and he nodded impressed. "I'll be training alongside your drillers for space."

"You're cute though…" Harry muttered more to himself. "I can tell you which ones of my guys to steer clear of."

"Rockhound for one." The black haired girl approached Kathy. "Grace Stamper." She shook Kathy's hand.

"Rockhound?" Kathy asked with a smirk.

"Yeah we call him hound because he's always horny."

Kathy paled worriedly and Grace smiled.

"Just scare him one time and he'll leave you alone. Max will just stare at you and get too nervous to talk to you. Bear will make you laugh, Oscar will stare at your boobs, Freddy Noonan will stare at your ass. Chick is my father's best friend, and AJ is my boyfriend. Excluding AJ all of them will probably hit on you at some point."

"I could just tell them I already have my eye on somebody." Kathy grinned and Ronald looked over at her in surprise.

"May I ask who?" Ronald asked curiously.

"I'm not saying." Kathy glared at him.

"I'll just wait to see which one you irritate the most. The one that you target and tease the most will be it." Ron shot back at her and she frowned.


	3. Meet the Drillers and Flying with Chuck

The next morning Kathy McDaniels was sitting at a table in one of the hangers while the oil drillers filtered in and saw her and immediately made a beeline for her.

"So what's a pretty girl like yourself sitting at a table meant for us roughnecks?" One of the men asked with a grin that made her feel like she was in a porno.

"You must be Rockhound." Kathy mentioned getting out her laptop and starting to work from one of the binders and quickly jacked into the space shuttle Independence.

"Looks like somebody warned her about you Rock." Harry Stamper grinned sitting beside her. While a black haired man and a blonde haired man got into a mini-argument as to sitting on the other side of her. "So you're joining us in the training right?" Harry asked curiously and Kathy nodded.

"Good morning, my name is Colonel Willie Sharpe." Will greeted the group of oil drillers and one computer technician. He watched her keep an ear for what he was saying but also kept working on a laptop and also the binders on the table. "In addition to flying one of the X-71 teams to that rock, my job is to train you how to deal with the mental and physical riggers of working in space so you don't freak out on the asteroid. United States astronauts train for years. You have twelve days. Do we have any intelligent questions before we get started?"

The man sitting beside Kathy raised his hand and Will nodded to him.

"What's an X-71?"

"For god's sake he literally 'just' said that he was piloting one of them to the asteroid! What the hell do you think they are?!" Kathy glared at the man who looked down embarrassedly but he was hiding a smirk. She look over at Will Sharpe and caught the slight smirk on his face.

Chick Chapel leaned behind the girl and looked at Harry.

"I like this one Harry…" He admitted making Harry nod with a silent laugh.

"So yeah why exactly do we have one extra person?" The black haired man that had fought with the blonde one asked.

"Considering I built and programmed the computers inside the shuttles, it'd be a good idea to have me onboard yeah?" Kathy asked sarcastically surprising the other men at the table.

After they were done in the hanger the group of oil riggers and one computer technician were sent outside to the tarmac. Kathy looked at the planes and felt a smirk crossing her face as she looked at the pale faces of the roughnecks. Colonel Willie Sharpe saw the smirk and scowled at the group.

"I want to wipe that damn smirk off of her face." He grumbled to Chuck who scoffed.

"Too bad kid, I got her this round." Chuck chuckled before looking at the other pilots. "So who wants to lay the bets?"

"I got Stamper, so he may or not blow chunks." Will looked at the leader. "That one they call Max, most definitely. Which ones do you think will scream like little girls?" He asked and he heard Max Davis approach.

"All of them minus McDaniels, she looks like she's about to orgasm in excitement." He remarked noticing how excited the computer technician appeared.

"We'll see how excited she is, after 'I' get her in my plane." Chuck grinned and Davis cringed.

The pilots went to grab their respected targets and Will Sharpe glared at how eagerly McDaniels grabbed Chuck's arm and started towards his jet.

"Well what are we waiting around here for?!" Kathy shouted in glee and practically dove into the backseat.

"I ain't going easy on you just because you're a girl…" Chuck warned her as he started his flight sequence and heard a snort in his radio.

"Trying to make me puke huh?" Kathy asked and saw his head drop slightly in front of her. "Probably should mention that I've survived England's Vomit Comet."

Chuck's eyes went wide when he heard that but she continued talking.

"Russian's Silver Bullet, Germany's Gut Dropper." Kathy kept mentioning some of the fastest clocked simulator's and propulsive jets. "I can keep naming them…" She taunted the man slightly and he shook his head and laughed in disbelief.

"Sharpe wants to wipe the smirk off of your face." Chuck admitted and Kathy smirked. "Sounds like you're going to wipe the one off of his."

Chuck shot into the air with a sharp whoosh and Kathy laughed in delight. During the tricks he was doing Kathy huffed in laughter.

"You know, I could hack into your plane right now, and fly from the backseat right?"

After an hour everybody landed and Kathy sprang from the plane grinning even wider than when she had gone in. Chuck watched her bound away with an excited bounce to her step. He let out an amused huff of laughter then he cringed hearing liquid hitting the tarmac. He looked over and saw Will Sharpe shaking vomit off of his arm. He snorted in laughter at the disgusted look on the younger man's face.

"So got Stamper huh?" He taunted Will who glared over at him. "Mine didn't even get sick. She's been on the Vomit Comet, the Silver Bullet, and the Gut Dropper." Chuck shouted over to him and Will scowled even more.


	4. Pranks and Girl Talk

Two days later the NASA teams were watching in amusement as the technician named Kathryn McDaniels set little booby-traps all over the place and pranked Will Sharpe with no end in sight. Ronald Quincy rose an eyebrow at her challengingly and she shrugged with a grin.

Nathan Gruber was standing off to the side watching the drillers and the techie get used to weightless environments in the pool. The other group of drillers that had already gone in were milling around Nathan, Tony Tucker, and Max Davis when an angry scream came from the locker room. Everybody including the control room looked over seeing Will Sharpe storm out the room soaking wet with what looked like flour sticking to him. Nathan Gruber's eyes went wide and he spun around with a hand to his mouth trying to stop the snickering. Will gave them all a venomous glare before he tore out of the building and probably to his third shower of the day.

"Honestly I haven't seen Sharpe this wound up since his divorce." Dan Truman came to stand beside the flight crew and drillers.

"He's going to kill her at some point." Chick commented trying to dry his hair and Rockhound snorted in laughter.

"Or fuck her." Everybody looked over at him and he shrugged. "Come on, I can't be the only one that notices the volcanic sexual tension between them…"

"Nope, I'm pretty sure he'd kill her before they would even get to first base." Max Davis surmised making the other men snort in laughter.

"I don't know, Rock may have a point." Harry came up beside them throwing his towel into the bin. "You didn't see the blow out fight last night in the cafeteria between them."

"I saw it Harry, which is why I say they are closer to fucking than killing each other." Rock grinned. "Chemistry 101 kids…chemistry 101..." Rockhound muttered quietly.

"She has a way to get under your skin that's for sure." Dan grumbled darkly.

"And 'she' can hear you…"

The whole group of men turned and saw Kathy standing behind them grinning while Jennifer Watts and Grace Stamper just looked at them in disappointment.

Kathy was sitting in the cafeteria later drinking something that looked red.

"That better not be liquor." Jennifer Watts sat across from her.

"Cherry Syrup, I am eating skittles and washing them down with syrup."

"That sounds heavenly." Grace Stamper mentioned as she sat down completing the triangle table. "So when Ron Quincy mentioned that you would find a preferred target and tease the hell out of them, does this mean that your target is Colonel Sharpe?"

"Nah, he just looked like he could use some levity in his life." Kathy tossed a skittle and caught it in her mouth. "He can't go through life all stiff and serious he'll have a heart attack before his 50th birthday."

"How do you know he's not already 50?" Jen asked and Kathy grinned wolfishly at her.

"I hacked all of your personal records." Kathy leaned forward. "FYI your husband is hot."

Jen's eyes went wide and she burst into hysterical laughter. The three of them ate Skittles and drank cherry syrup and talked about stupid things.

"Okay so if you weren't married who would you date?" Grace asked Jen who thought about it.

"AJ." She nodded to herself and Grace's eyes went wide. "Come on he's like an Italian Stallion." Jen argued and Grace started to laugh even harder. "How about you McDaniels?" Jennifer asked coyly thinking she would say a certain blue eyed Colonel's name.

"Truthfully? Harry." Kathy stated simply and Grace's squeal of horror made Jen cough on her syrup in laughter. "Hon, not even going to lie, your dad is kind of hot."

"OH MY GOD!" Grace shrieked holding her ears in dismay. Jen fell out of her chair in hysterics.

"So if you weren't together with AJ?" Kathy asked and Grace frowned.

"I don't know, Gruber's kind of adorable." Grace admitted and Kathy nodded with a snort.

"He does have that doe-eyed look…" Kathy agreed with her.

Jen got back into her chair still laughing until she started coughing.

"Seriously?! Harry Stamper?!"

"Hey I'm high on skittles and syrup I don't know what I'm saying right now!" Kathy defended herself making the other two laugh harder.


	5. Arguments and a Supply Room Floor

"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON IN HERE?!"

The three girls looked over and saw Chick, Rockhound, Harry and Colonel Sharpe staring at them. They started to giggle again trying to stop themselves.

Will Sharpe looked at the three of them sternly. Jennifer was acting like a teenager, normally she had better control of her actions.

"You better not be drinking in here…" Will growled angrily making Kathy huff in laughter.

"Nope just cherry syrup and skittles. You know if Watts wasn't married she'd date AJ Frost because he's an Italian Stallion." Kathy could barely get the words out through her sugar high laughter. She didn't even see the looks of disgust on the men's faces.

"If Grace wasn't dating AJ, she'd date Gruber because of his adorable doe-eyed look!" Jennifer burst out.

"And I would be dating Harry because her father is kind of hot!" Kathy let out more loud laughter.

"IT CAN'T BE UNHEARD!" Grace screamed covering her ears again.

Chick saw the light blush on Harry's cheeks and he leaned closer to him and Rock.

"Look's like you two were wrong about her and the colonel." Chick offered smugly and Rockhound was smirking looking elsewhere.

"By the 'I will set you ablaze' expression Sharpe is giving Harry right now, I'd say we're spot on." Rock mentioned quietly so only Chick and Harry could hear him.

Harry dodged a quick look to Colonel Will Sharpe and cringed.

"I didn't think a human being could get that color of purple." Harry muttered darkly making Chick snort in laughter.

Will Sharpe wasn't sure why he was so pissed off when he heard what the three women had to say about themselves. No that wasn't it, he was more pissed that McDaniels would rather date a damn oil rigger than somebody of intelligence.

'Like you?'

Will glared at the random phrase his brain shot at him and he denied it. Of course not, he'd be insane to find somebody like that crazy bitch attractive!

'How about your pulse shooting up every time she is around?' His brain tried again.

Right that had been his blood pressure and nothing else.

'You can lie to everybody else, but you can't lie to yourself. You wanted to do more last night when you argued. Don't think I didn't see that image of you slamming her into the tabletop and forcing her to submit to you.'

"I'm not listening to this." He announced to everybody in the room including his own mind. He turned around and stalked out of the room.

Kathy sighed and followed him out of the cafeteria.

"Come on Sharpe, they were just having fun. It must seem like a foreign concept to you, but…"

Before she could continue complaining she felt a hard grip to her arm and herself being launched into a supply room. She heard the door slam shut behind her. Will Sharpe was glaring at her and pacing.

"I do NOT need my co-pilot to be distracted with stupid shit."

"Laughing eating skittles and drinking cherry syrup distracts her?"

"You have a job to do!" Will growled angrily and Kathy rolled her eyes.

"And I've already DONE it! I just need to wait until I'm on that rock to finish syncing up Freedom!"

"You need to take this seriously!" Will shouted trying to get her to see his point.

"You think I'm not?! My friends all four of them, will die if we fuck up!" Kathy shouted at him. "I don't care about the planet or its people! I care about them! Like Jen cares about her husband, Max Davis cares about his wife and kids, Nathan Gruber cares about his mother, Tim Halsey cares about his brother and sister, Tony Tucker cares about his wife and son…" Kathy breathed in quietly. "And you care about your daughters and maybe the ex-wife."

She saw the confused expression on Sharpe's face and she huffed in laughter.

"I told Ron when you and I first met that I would get the work done and still have time to hack all of your files…" She explained and Will Sharpe's eyes rolled in exasperation. "Be thankful I didn't post your baby pictures over NASA's website like I did with Truman."

She was starting to leave the supply room when she heard a low grumbling come from Sharpe.

'Fucking Harry Stamper…'

She heard it, she probably wasn't supposed to hear it, but she still heard it. Her eyes went wide and a smile of disbelief crossed her face.

"What?" She asked and she turned to see Sharpe facing away from her and noticed his shoulders hunched slightly like he was cringing at his stupidity. "Did you just say 'fucking Harry Stamper'?"

"You're hearing things McDaniels."

"Oh no I'm not." She had an idea that Sharpe was pissed at something else all together and it had nothing to do with Watts or Grace. "Sounds like you are jealous that I said I would probably date Harry…"

"Don't flatter yourself." Will tried to brush past her to leave the room but she moved in front of him blocking his exit. "Move."

"Not until you tell me to my face that you don't 'feel' the energy between us."

"I feel nothing…" Will stated quietly but the closeness of her body to his was turning him into a liar. She smirked at him and he swallowed nervously.

"Oh 'I' feel something…" Kathy mentioned before she stood up straighter and placed her lips against his.

Will let out a groan feeling electricity shoot through his body, like fire and ice was traveling through his veins. He lost all inhibitions when McDaniels kissed him and his mind fogged out and started kissing her back. His senses came back with shock but now they were on the floor of Supply Room. Their clothes were strewn all over the place and he was panting against her neck.

"Okay…" Kathy gasped in some air trying to get her breathe back. "We probably shouldn't do that again." She groaned lightly shifting on the floor and sat up beside him. "Cold hard floor is not a fun place. Next time we choose more comfort." She finalized and she saw Will Sharpe throwing his clothes on. "You okay Sharpe?" She asked curiously.

"This is 'not' happening again McDaniels! This shouldn't have even happened 'this' time!"

"That's okay, we're both adults." Kathy stood up and got dressed. Will saw a scar on her side. "Don't let it bother you." She looked at him. "You needed to blow up, and I pushed you into reacting. See you tomorrow Colonel."

"The scar…" He mentioned quietly and she looked over at him. "Where did you get it?"

"I was 14 or 15, some guys took over my little sister's school. I hid in the vent shaft and one of the guys slammed a spear through it and got me in the side."

"I wasn't aware you had siblings." He mentioned putting his flight suit back on over his clothes.

"Keyword 'had'."

"Did she die at the school?"

"No, I saved her. I lost Melissa, mom and dad ten years ago to a car crash."

"You said you cared about four people." Will looked at her curiously.

"Four guys." Kathy leaned against the doorway now facing him. "Ron Quincy, John Watson, and Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes."

"Your ex?" Will asked came to stand beside her not sure why he was now calmer.

"I love all four of them, they're the only family I have left. I even introduced Quinn to Beth they were married three years later."

"I think this is the longest the both of us have been civil to one another." Will smirked despite the fact that they had been arguing then ended up having sex on the floor of the supply room. "So does this mean the pranks stop?" He asked suddenly.

"Pranks yes, air force jokes no…" Kathy McDaniels looked over when he huffed in laughter. "So that's not happening again huh?"

"More than likely not." He scowled at her warningly and she gave him a wolfish grin.

"Shame, I doubt Stamper could throw me into a tailspin like that." She teased him and left the room.

Will Sharpe blushed a deep red and grinned before he left the room himself.


	6. Confessions and Air Force Jokes

Kathy McDaniels knocked on a door and it opened revealing Grace Stamper.

"I need to talk to somebody."

Grace let her into the room and she sat on the bed.

"Okay so…?"

"I just had sex with Sharpe." Kathy admitted out loud and Grace fell off the other bed in surprise.

"Colonel Sharpe? The guy that you prank and the one that glares at you murderously?"

"Yeah surprising right?" Kathy ran a hand through her hair.

"Okay…details, I want details!" Grace got back onto her bed staring at her.

"It was after he stormed out of the cafeteria. I tried to calm him down but he threw me into a supply room and started yelling at me. I started yelling back and somehow we ended up naked on the floor."

"Holy shit!" Grace started laughing.

"I am not sure who was more surprised him or me."

"So how was it?" Grace asked curiously and Kathy grinned.

"Sharpe is built in all the right places." Kathy answered and Grace started giggling.

Will Sharpe was shaking his head walking back to his room when he came across Ron Quincy in a lab. He knocked on the door.

"Colonel Sharpe." Ron nodded to him and Will walked in. "What brings you all the way to the lab rat section?"

"I need some advice." Will sat down on the table closest to Ron.

"About what?" Ron asked while he worked on the computer.

"McDaniels." Will admitted quietly and Ron looked up at him and he smirked.

"So you two finally had sex." Ron mentioned casually making Will startle slightly. Ron laughed enjoying the military man's discomfort.

"I am really disturbed that you would know that." Will grumbled darkly and Ron snorted in laughter.

"I've known Kathy for seven years, I know how she is." Ron saved his work and turned around to address Will fully. "So let me guess, she pushed you until you exploded?"

"Still disturbed that you would know that." Will frowned and Ron sat on the table across from him with a smirk.

"Honestly I knew you were her target as soon as she started pranking you. She is the kind of person to find somebody she likes and annoys the shit out of them until they break. I would've thought you broke sooner than you did. It's her version of pulling your pigtails."

"Is she the kind of person that would cease after her target is neutralized?"

"Not really, but she knows when she pushes somebody too far."

"She said she'd stop with the pranks but there would air force jokes."

"Well she sticks to her word." Ronald Quincy shrugged and Will sighed in relief. "However her jokes tend to hurt more than pranks."

Will nodded and started away before Ron called him back.

"I'm one of the smartest people in the world Colonel. The idea for the drilling came from me, so you know how smart I am." Ron started and Will looked confused. "I don't have to tell you how many different ways I can dispose of a body." Ronald Quincy actually warned Colonel Willie Sharpe in no uncertain terms that he would kill him if he did anything stupid.

"I didn't think I'd ever see anybody more terrifying than my basic training drill sergeant." Will shook his head and left the room.

The next morning Will Sharpe woke up and heard laughter in the hallway. He opened the door and saw people staring at his door. He turned the door and saw a piece of paper on it that said:

'how do you know a fighter pilot is in the bar? Answer, he will tell you.'

Will felt his lip twitch slightly knowing that Kathy McDaniels was starting her joke barrage. Throughout the day he found little pieces of paper around the base, his locker *he'd never figure out how she got in it*, his quarters door, his truck and his jet.

'If it takes all your power to taxi down the runway when you land: the wheels are up.'

Will had to laugh at that one. Actually he had laughed at almost all of them.

'Not a good idea to eject over the territory you just bombed.'

"That's kind of self-explanatory." He muttered to himself while he took the note down.

'What is the difference between God and a fighter pilot? Answer, God doesn't think he's a fighter pilot.'

"Ouch…" Will cringed at that one and then the one taped to his jet made him pout slightly.

'What is the difference between a fighter pilot and a jet engine? Answer, A jet engine stops whining when the plane shuts down.'

"Okay that one hurt." He grumbled darkly and crumbled up the note.


	7. Star Wars Roles and a Shower Scene

Later in the day the oil drillers and the computer technician were listening to Jennifer Watts informing them about the DATS thrusters. Kathy was standing near Rockhound, Bear and Oscar who had been the blonde guy that had argued with Freddy Noonan that day about sitting next to her which had been taken by Chick Chapel.

"What's the deal, is it me or is Watts really hot?" Oscar asked Bear and Rockhound while Kathy shot the three of them scowls.

"You won't bounce like Neil Armstrong…" Watts actually did hear what they were saying and she snapped at the one that was making the most noise. "BEAR!" She shouted getting the big black man's attention quickly.

"I think he pulled something…" Kathy muttered to Rockhound who snorted in laughter.

"Do we have a problem?!" Jen approached the man who was three times larger than her.

"No." Bear answered worriedly.

"Because I'm trying to describe to you how these DATS keep your ass on the ground, so that if I were to kick you in the balls, and you don't know how to work them, what happens to you?" Jen asked sternly and Bear swallowed.

"I'd float away," He answered and Jen glared at him sarcastically.

"Yeah." She nodded before Rockhound spoke up.

"And when do we start training for _that_?" Rockhound asked with a smirk making Kathy gape at him.

"Tosser." Kathy grumbled to herself making Harry snort in laughter.

"Gentlemen, McDaniels I'll give you thirty seconds to put on your helmets before the oxygen gets sucked out of this room and you can feel what it will be like in space."

The flight crew started to leave and Kathy smirked at Will Sharpe.

"Having a good morning Sharpe?" She asked and Will looked at her with a quirked eyebrow.

"I wouldn't know McDaniels it's not like I'm God…" He shot back at her pointedly and she smirked at him some more.

"No you're just built like one…" She winked at him and he blushed before he fled the room with a smirk.

The group started to learn how to use their DAT packs when Rockhound started talking to the others.

"Yeah, you guys should have seen the look that Sharpe gave Harry last night." He mentioned out loud making Kathy look over curiously.

"Rock…" Harry warned the sex addict.

"No Harry, it was hilarious. Watts, Grace and McDaniels were talking and McDaniels said she would date Harry if she had a choice."

The sounds from the guys in the room varied from jeers to laughter.

"She said it in front of Harry and Sharpe." Chick chuckled and Oscar let out a loud guffaw of laughter.

"That's harsh…" Freddy Noonan shook his head. "So much for Sharpe and McDaniels being a thing."

"You didn't see the feral look Sharpe shot Harry when he heard her say it." Chick mentioned with a grin.

"Oh this is better than Springer." Oscar offered grinning at the British computer tech.

"Could we please focus on getting this done?" Kathy asked the men who snickered.

"You guys know we can hear you out here right?" Max Davis asked through the com system but it sounded like he was holding back laughter.

The day went by quickly for the people that had to work on astronaut training. Kathy was running a diagnostic test on the armadillos when she heard an argument between Oscar and AJ.

"No if anybody is anybody, I'm Han, and you're Chewbacca."

"Chewie?! Have you even 'seen' Star Wars?!" Oscar complained to AJ and they saw Kathy standing there quirking an eyebrow at them. "McDaniels you can settle this for us!"

"Settle what?" Kathy asked curiously while Rockhound checked her ass out with a smirk. She jolted her elbow backwards clipping the horn dog in the ribs and he grunted in pain and went back to work. Oscar and AJ were snickering at how she nailed Rockhound without even looking.

"So settle what?"

"Star Wars, I say I'd be Han, but Oscar here thinks it would be him…"

"Oh, this is settled really quickly. AJ has a darker complexion and darker hair, he's Han." AJ heard that and he grinned smugly at Oscar. "And Oscar has a lighter complexion and lighter hair, he would be Luke. Problem solved." She started away knowing she pleased both of them when she heard Oscar shout to her.

"How about you, who would you be?"

"She's British, she's 3PO…" AJ shrugged and Kathy glared at him.

"Please…I'm a talented computer technician that can also hack anything and everybody kind of loves me. I'm R2." She finished and walked away hearing the laughter from the two oil drillers.

Kathy entered the showering area and started to unzip her jumpsuit and heard a throat being cleared and she looked over seeing Will Sharpe standing there.

"So." He started with a smug grin. "Like a god huh?" He asked while he put his hands in his pockets. "I had a talk with Quincy shortly after, last night. He informed me that he knew as soon as you started to prank me…"

"Could we talk a little later? I need a shower."

"I won't complain." He smirked at her and she huffed in laughter.

Kathy stripped out of the jumpsuit and he saw the Doctor Who t-shirt she had on and he laughed slightly. Kathy glared at him and entered the shower and slid the curtain closed and started the water. Will swallowed seeing the shirt get tossed over the rod and then her pants.

"So you can keep talking." Kathy stated over the running water.

"I…uhm…forget what I was going to say." Will grumbled more to himself but he heard the laugh from the shower.

Kathy poked her head out from behind the curtain and Will tried to look anywhere else.

"Want to conserve water?" She asked and Will looked around quicker trying very hard not to look at Kathy's figure pressed up into the curtain. Kathy rolled her eyes and grabbed his arm and pulled him into the shower fully clothed. His clothes soon joined hers on the rod and he shook his head at her.

"You drive me absolutely insane." Will whispered before he kissed her.

The door to the shower room opened and the two of them quieted down when the sink nearby started up.

"Hey McDaniels that you?" Jennifer Watts asked while she was brushing her teeth.

"Hmm hm." Kathy muttered feeling Will pressing his lips against her neck.

"I wanted to thank you for last night, it's hard enough being a woman on all guy flight crew…I'm sure it helped Grace Stamper as well." She spit out the toothpaste and heard the giggle from the shower and Jen frowned. Her eyes widened slightly when she heard Kathy moan in pleasure. "You're not alone in there are you?"

'Please do not be in there with Harry Stamper…' Jen silently complained to herself when she heard a familiar growl in dismay.

"Watts no offense, but get out." Will informed her breathlessly making Jen's eyes widen in surprise.

'Sharpe?!' Jennifer Watts mouthed the word with a confused grin and slammed a hand to her mouth to stop her laughter before she bolted out of the shower room. The two of them heard the hysterical laughter all the way down the hall.

"You probably should not have done that…" Kathy smiled at him and he shrugged with a smirk.

"Too agitated to think straight right now." Will went back to kissing her.


	8. scariest environment imaginable

Jennifer Watts saw Grace walking down the hallway towards the showers and she stopped her.

"Might want to wait about an hour Stamper." Jen informed her and Grace shot her a confused look. "McDaniels and Sharpe have commandeered the shower room…" Jen's face was turning redder while trying to hold back her laughter. Grace's eyes went wide and she laughed along with Jennifer.

"They're at it again?!"

"Again?!" Jennifer asked with wide eyes.

"Yeah, McDaniels told me they had sex in a supply room last night."

"HOLY SHIT!" The two women turned around and saw Dan Truman standing there with Rockhound, AJ, Nathan Gruber and Colonel Max Davis. Rockhound grinned at Max Davis.

"I fucking told you so!" He chortled at the military man who shrugged.

The next day the oil drillers, the flight crew and a computer technician were sitting around a large table listening to Dan Truman giving them more information that they needed to hear. When Kathy entered the room everybody was grinning at her but Ron Quincy was snickering silently and she looked at him confusedly. She sat down beside Freddy Noonan who started to leer at her.

"So had a little fun time in the shower huh?" Freddy asked grinning and Kathy rolled her eyes and glared at Jennifer who shrugged sheepishly at her.

Will Sharpe entered the conference room and paused seeing everybody staring at him with smirks. He walked towards his chair and heard the snickers and when he passed Nathan the younger man reacted.

"Bow chicka bow wow…" He teased Will while Tim Halsey snorted in laughter.

That released the floodgate of catcalls and wolf whistles from the flight crew and oil drillers even some of the scientists nearby were practically giggling. He sat beside Max Davis whom had a shit eating grin on his face.

"You too Brutus?" Will asked his friend who snorted in laughter. Will looked over at Kathy with a scowl and she shook her head.

"Don't look at me, you were the one that announced yourself to Watts." Kathy put her hands up in surrender and Will glared over at Jennifer who smiled at him innocently.

"So do you share the shower with just any person or do I have to take a number?" Rockhound asked Kathy curiously with a leer and Will shot him a murderous expression. Rockhound swallowed nervously and sunk lower in his seat.

"Oscar please hit him." Kathy asked the blonde haired man who promptly turned in his chair and slapped Rock in the head.

"OW MAN! WHAT THE HELL?!" Rock whined rubbing his head.

"She played along with me and AJ over Star Wars and even ended our argument over roles. Us two pledge our undying loyalty and adoration to her. Sorry man…"

"Great." Kathy grumbled quietly to Will and Max Davis. "Now I have a Beavis and Butthead Fan Club." Both men snickered silently and Dan Truman came into the room ready to start and Dan gave her a sharp look and she cleared her throat.

"Ok people, so here's the flight plan: Now let's keep the laughter to a minimum; I know this is not to scale. Both shuttles will take off Tuesday at 6:30 pm. Now sixty-seven minutes later, you're gonna dock with the Russian space station to meet Cosmonaut Andropov who will refuel the shuttles with liquid O2, that's your fuel. Then you'll release and take a sixty hour trip towards the moon." He glanced over at the group in blue flight suits and quirked an eyebrow at Will Sharpe who was sitting beside McDaniels. "Now, we only have one shot of landing on this rock and that's precisely when the asteroid passes the moon. You'll then use lunar gravity and burn your thrusters, sling-shotting you around the moon, coming up behind the asteroid. You'll be upward of eleven G's." Dan informed the group.

"Yeah, I remember this one," Rockhound interrupted. "It's where the coyote sat his ass down in a slingshot and he strapped himself to an ACME rocket. Is that what we're doing here?"

"Rockhound," Harry warned quietly.

"No, no really, because it didn't work out too well for the coyote, Harry."

Kathy's eyes widened in horror.

"Oh dear god, we're all going to die…" She bemoaned quietly and Will shot her a dark look.

"Well, actually, we have a lot better rockets than the coyote." Dan Truman mentioned back to Rockhound and this time Max Davis' eyes widened.

"Dan Truman just made a joke, it really 'is' the end of the world…" He grumbled making Kathy and Freddy snort in laughter. Dan glared the three of them into silence and continued.

"Now, when you've finished your 'Roadrunner thrust' move, you'll be moving at 22,500 miles per hour. Coming around behind the asteroid where we're hoping that the tail debris will be cleared by the moon's gravity. And you'll land right here." He moved the rockets to the suspended asteroid replica. "That's it." Walter Clark took his cue, drawing their attention to him.

"We've got separate landing sites for each team, softest parts of the rock as we can figure. At NASA we don't take chances, we double-up on everything. First team that hits eight hundred feet wins."

"Ok, Mr. Truman," Oscar began. "Let's say that we actually _do_ land on this. What's it gonna be like up there?"

"Two hundred degrees in the sunlight, minus two hundred in the shade. Canyons of razor-sharp rock, unpredictable gravitational conditions, unexpected eruptions…Things like that," he responded nonchalantly.

"Ok, so the scariest environment imaginable…Thanks, that's all you gotta say: 'scariest environment imaginable'." Oscar had paled in fear but he noticed that everybody's faces were a bit colorless.

Kathy felt a hand on her thigh and she looked over at Will Sharpe who barely glanced at her as he listened. She lightly covered his hand with hers trying to offer him some comfort and he smirked lightly at her.

"Ok, so you drill, you drop the nuke, and you leave. Now here's the key: you're gonna remote detonate the bomb before the asteroid passes this plane." He nodded at Dr. Quincy who turns on a monitor. "Zero barrier. You do that and the remaining pieces of rock should be deflected enough to pass right by us. Now if the bomb explodes after zero barrier-" The computer showed the rocks hit earth. "Game's over."


	9. closer to launch time

There were three days left before launch and Kathy was starting to really freak out. She listened to Ron Quincy telling her that since the computer 'heavy lifting' was on the Independence that she would be on that one to start with.

"Okay so I get stuck with my Beavis and Butthead Fan Club, wonderful…" She mentioned sarcastically and Ronald laughed. "Quinn, I am getting really scared."

"We are all Kath. You know if this thing fails it's all on my head." Ron sat on the table frowning worriedly.

"I think the worst part for me is that if we fail, or I die, I would never have seen or talked to Mycroft, Sherlock or John again."

Later that day Ron had told her that AJ's drill team had fucked up and Harry had ordered Dan to let his men have the next day off. Kathy huffed in laughter seeing the men take off as fast as they could. Even Ron and Dan had fled to see their families and Kathy frowned sadly knowing that she couldn't see her 'family'.

"You stuck here too kid?" Harry Stamper asked her as he came to stand beside her.

"I'm British Stamper, I can't see my boys and you know it."

"You and Sharpe huh?" Harry asked with a smirk. "You know I gotta thank you McDaniels. It's been a very long time since my daughter laughed like that. My guys like you, NASA seems to like you. Truman however just tolerates you…"

"That's because a few years ago I hacked his personal files and put his baby pictures up on the NASA website. He's still a little pissed about it."

"I can see why." Harry huffed in laughter.

"Well I'm going to go hook up a vid-link with Mycroft Holmes, maybe I can get him to grab up his brother and flat mate. Could be my last chance to see them after all."

"Take care and get some sleep McDaniels. We leave for Kennedy early." Harry slapped her shoulder good naturedly.

Kathy found herself in a lab hooking up her computer and sat down in front of it. It was night here so it would be day in London. She jacked into Mycroft Holmes' computer system and the screen powered up.

"Kathy?" Mycroft looked at her sternly. "You do realize you just interrupted an important call with the president of Germany?" He scolded her and saw the sad wistful look on her face.

"I need to talk to you Myc." She started and Mycroft rolled his eyes in exasperation.

"Whatever it is, it can wait until after the elections."

"Mycroft please wait!" Kathy tried to stop him but he had cut the feed and she closed her eyes feeling tears in her eyes.

Next she jacked into John Watson's computer and he startled when his computer screen blanked and she popped up on it.

"For god sake Kath! You just cost me, my newest blog!" He complained adorably.

"John I need to talk you, or Sherlock. Even if only for a moment."

BANGBANGBANG

Kathy growled angrily at the loud gunshots.

"Tell that idiot to stop shooting the walls!" She shouted and John sighed in exasperation.

"OI! KATHY SAID CUT IT OUT!" John shouted into the main room of the apartment.

"I thought she was in America?" Sherlock mentioned curiously as he entered John's room. "Oh never mind it's just her hijacking your computer." Sherlock turned around and started to leave.

"Sherlock get your high-cheek boned ass back in here!" Kathy ordered him sternly and he walked back in grumbling.

"Still amazing how you get him to listen." John smirked but Sherlock frowned seeing the look in her eyes and he sat beside John at the desk.

"Something's wrong." He deduced quietly.

"Yeah Sher, something is wrong. Something big is happening, and it's bad. I just wanted to see you guys, if only for one more time."

"Kathy?" Sherlock asked worriedly.

"You guys know I love all three of you right?" She asked worrying John and Sherlock even more.

"What is going on?" John asked unable to mask his fear.

"Look up, just look up." That was all she said as she disconnected the computer despite the shouts from her two boys.

Kathy McDaniels shut the computer down and started crying.

"McDaniels?"

Kathy wiped her eyes free from tears and she looked over at Dan Truman who looked paler than she'd ever see him.

"What happened?" She asked standing up in panic.

"There was a meteorite that struck a city in South Asia." He informed her quietly.

"Death toll?" She asked feeling tears collecting again.

"It's over 50,000 by now."

"Oh god this is really happening…" Kathy looked like she was about to hurl and Dan gave her the trashcan and she leaned over it breathing heavily. "So if the toll is that high, I'm guessing Dottie the Asteroid is now front page news."

"Pretty much, everybody's being called back as we speak. You know I can't remember the last time Sharpe smiled like this. You may be a pain in the ass, but you can keep people light hearted. You should get some sleep while you still can." Dan started to walk away.

"Dan." Kathy rarely called him by his first name. "I wouldn't trust anybody to watch our asses up there but you and Ron."

"Thanks McDaniels, that almost means nothing." Dan informed her getting a small smile from her. "Get some rest." He actually smiled back at her.

"Does this mean I'm forgiven for the baby pictures?"

"Not on your life." Dan huffed in laughter and walked away.

Around 2:00 am Kathy found herself sitting in the cafeteria idly turning a cup of cold coffee in her hands.

"Can't sleep either?" Oscar Choi asked sitting beside her.

"Pretty much." She admitted and she heard the other seat beside her move and looked over to see the larger driller named Max sitting there with a look of fear on his face.

"You also?" Oscar asked Max who just played with his hands nervously.

"Too fucking terrified to sleep." Max offered quietly.

"This a private party or can anyone join?" Chick asked as he sat down across the table.

"Somebody say party?" Freddy Noonan asked with a grin bringing over a chair and sitting.

"Yeah it's a terror party, the more the merrier." Kathy smirked sadly at Freddy and Chick.

"My kind of party." Rockhound sat down beside Chick. "I don't think I've ever been so scared."

"Shame that a big guy like me is this scared." Bear came in next and sat down at the table.

"It's normal, makes us human." Harry offered sitting at the table. AJ and Grace entered behind Harry and sat next.

"I can't believe the whole world knows that we're its only hope." AJ shook his head putting his arm around Grace's shoulders.

"Here we thought we'd be the only ones in here." Max Davis called out to them coming into the cafeteria.

The oil drillers and computer technician looked over and saw the other members of the flight crew beside him.

"Pull up a chair and join the terror party." Kathy offered and they huffed in laughter and started to pull up chairs.

Will Sharpe glared at Oscar who scoffed in laughter and moved his chair over.

"Fucking caveman." Oscar grumbled as Will sat beside Kathy. The people around the table snickered lightly and they all sat there silently afterwards.

"You get in touch with your guys?" Harry asked Kathy and she smirked.

"Two of them, I hijacked John's computer and he yelled at me for interrupting his blog. Sherlock was in the living room shooting holes in the wall again."

"He shoots the wall?" Rockhound asked with wide eyes.

"He does it when he gets bored."

"Sounds like Harry with his shotgun." AJ chortled and Harry shot him a scathing look.

Oscar finally yawned and he looked around the table.

"What time is it?" He asked curiously looking at his watch. "It's been an hour."

"We should probably try to grab some sleep." Harry sighed and stood up and started away.

One by one everybody got up and walked away from the table. Kathy still sat at the table and Will looked at her curiously.

"Not tired?" He asked and she smirked.

"Too tired to sleep, and way too freaked out to relax to sleep." She admitted and he chuckled lightly.

"Same here." He nodded in agreement. "I could probably use a cuddle buddy."

"What the hell is a cuddle buddy?"

"You didn't cuddle with any of your guys?" Will asked in surprise.

"Sherlock, Mycroft and John would rather shoot themselves in the foot before they cuddle something." Kathy sat back in her chair trying to relax. "So you got to see your daughters?" She asked curiously and Will smirked.

"Yeah, it was only for a couple hours. Alice and Martin had plans for later."

"The ex and the new one?"

"Alice and I divorced when our kids were young. We're still friends though."

"I'm still friends with Sherlock." Kathy grinned and pulled a picture out of her pocket. "This is back when I first starting college and met Ron."

Will huffed in laughter seeing five people in the photo. He could tell Ron and Kathy but the other three he was confused about.

"So I know which one is Quincy and you, but who are the other three?" Will asked and Kathy smiled sadly.

"This one right here." She pointed to an young man in a suit and tie. He was older than the others but he still seemed to be friends with all of them. "Is Mycroft Holmes." Kathy explained to Will. "The short one is John Watson." She pointed to a guy who was wearing a sweater and he was smirking at Kathy and Ron. "And this is Sherlock." She pointed to a taller guy who looked like he was disgusted with everything around him.

"That's your ex…?" Will asked seeing the facial expression on Sherlock.

"Yep. He's a bit hard to take sometimes. His level of genius is pretty much unmatched, though his brother Mycroft would beg to differ."

"You want to go to bed?" Will asked after some silence and saw the suggestive smirk on her face and he scowled at her. "To sleep?" He added and Kathy huffed in laughter and nodded.

Will escorted her back to her quarters and Kathy looked back outside when he turned away to head to his room.

"You can stay if you want to." She admitted sleepily and Will rolled his eyes and entered the room and the two of them got into the bed and fell asleep.

Kathy woke up an hour later and heard her computer system boot up and she started to get out of bed. Kathy looked down and grinned at how Will Sharpe had his arm wrapped tightly around her midsection and he was snuffling into the back of her neck. She untangled herself from his arms and she went to her computer and hooked it up.

"Mycroft?" She looked confused as she wiped her eyes tiredly.

"Kathy, I'm sorry that I cut you off earlier. If I had known…"

"It's okay Myc. Did you really jack my computer to apologize?"

"No, I got a call from Sherlock and John telling me that you had contacted them and they were worried that you were about to do something stupid."

"I guess you know that answer now that you saw what happened in China." She surmised and Mycroft nodded.

"You're going to travel to an asteroid. I don't think I've ever seen Sherlock so freaked out. John was so stricken that he waited in front of his computer for hours hoping you would contact him to tell it was a joke."

Kathy huffed in laughter knowing that John would completely sit in front of his computer for hours on end.

"And who is that I see in your bed?" Mycroft asked looking behind her and she blushed.

"Colonel Will Sharpe, he's flying one of the shuttles."

"Did you annoy him or prank him?" Mycroft questioned with a knowing smile.

"Both." Kathy admitted with a quiet laugh. "I really need sleep Myc, I'll talk to you guys when I get back."

"Please do what you can to ensure that you come back alive Kathy. I'd hate to break in a new computer technician."

"Don't strain yourself Holmes." Kathy smirked knowing that would as close to Mycroft would ever get to admission of caring about somebody.

"Goodbye Kath, safe travels."

"See you later Myc."

The two friends disconnected and Kathy laid back down on her bed. She felt Will's arm automatically go back around her body and pull her up against his body and she felt him press his face into her neck. She felt a smile cross her face when his lips started to press light kisses against her neck.

"That was Mycroft?" Will asked in a sleepy whisper.

"Thought you were awake." Kathy huffed in laughter.

"Sleep now." Will muttered tiredly and fell back asleep nuzzling her neck. She heard his breathing even out and it lulled her into sleep.


	10. Launch, Russians, and explosions, oh my!

The next morning the two of them woke up still tangled up in each others arms. Will started kissing her neck.

"What are you doing?" Kathy asked feeling Will cupping her chest.

"Trying to remember everything in case something happens to either of us."

"So in laymen terms you 'want' me." She surmised and Will started to undo her pants and was nuzzling her shoulder.

"I don't 'want' you McDaniels. I 'need' you." He was kissing her shoulder and she turned to face him and he started kissing her lips. "Need you now."

Thirty minutes later everybody was up and dressed in their space suits and was walking towards the shuttles. Will heard AJ singing to Grace while he was walking past Rockhound, Max and Bear. Kathy had her computer gear over her shoulder and joined Will's side.

"Now I'm going to have that damn song stuck in my head." She grumbled darkly.

"It's a good song…but his tone deafness just killed the whole thing." Will heard her bark of laughter.

The two shuttles groups got onto the elevators and Kathy felt somebody grab her hand. She looked over and smirked slightly that Will wasn't even looking at her but managed to take her hand in his. She squeezed his hand and she saw a light blush and a small grin on his face as he squeezed back. Harry Stamper huffed in silent laughter seeing the two of them and he smiled shaking his head.

"Freedom crew, Independence crew." One of the shuttle guys pointed everybody where they had to go.

Will looked over and saw that Kathy was starting to let go of his hand. He tugged at her hand and she lost her balance and went flying back to him and he kissed her. They heard the catcalls and wolf whistles and cheering from both shuttle crews. They withdrew from the kiss and Will smirked at her before he turned away to go to Freedom. He felt a tug on his hand and lost his balance and this time she was kissing him. Everybody was laughing now at their antics and Kathy pulled away with a blush.

"See you on the space station Sharpe." Kathy winked at him and he blushed slightly before he kissed her cheek.

Both of them went to their respected shuttles and Kathy saw that Max Davis was standing at the doorway of Independence waiting for her.

"Colonel Davis." Kathy greeted him and he smiled at her.

"Do you know how long we've been trying to dislodge that stick in his ass?" Max asked her making her laugh. "Some of us were afraid we'd need to surgically remove it."

"Thanks Davis, can we get going now?" Kathy asked while her face darkened in her blush.

Kathy was now sitting in her seat being strapped in and she used the extra prep time to jack into Independence's computer system. She made a quick patch through to Shuttle Freedom.

"This is Shuttle Independence crossing into Freedom. Do you copy Shuttle Freedom?" Kathy asked while she worked on her tablet.

"We read you loud and clear Independence." Jennifer answered back. "We are prepping for Independence synchronizing process."

"Let me know when the prep is done so I can commence with second phase."

"Will do Independence."

"How are you doing Oscar?" AJ asked as everybody was strapped into their chair even tighter.

"I'm great. I got that excited/scared feelin' like ninety-eight percent excited, two percent scared. Maybe more... it could be… it could be ninety-eight percent scared, two percent excited. But that's what makes it so intense, is it's so confused. I can't really figure it out." He turned his attention to the person strapping him in, "Will you make mine really tight, 'cause I don't want to fall out? I mean, almost to the point of cutting off circulation."

"Wow I don't think I've ever nervous chatter like that before." Kathy admitted making Freddy Noonan and Bear huff in laughter.

"Independence this is Shuttle Freedom." Will's voice came through the patch.

"Go ahead Freedom." Kathy was busy looking at the schematics of the shuttles to make sure everything was still in working condition.

"We are ready to commence synchronizing process."

"Right then, I am patching through into your systems. Do not be worried if weird cartoon characters show up on your monitors."

"Wait, what?" Will asked confusedly making her grin.

"Just kidding…"

The crews that strapped them in were now gone and they had sealed the hatches.

"Independence and Freedom, this is Kennedy firing room. We're T minus one minute. All crew members, close and lock your visors."

Everybody did as they were told and Kathy placed her tablet into her suit to protect it from the launch.

"Independence, this is launch control. Be advised, we're in a smooth count. T minus 31 seconds. You're go for auto-sequence start." One of the mission people stated over the computer.

"Okay, ladies and gentlemen, you're our warriors up there. God be with you. You're already heroes. Just sit back and enjoy the ride." Dan Truman informed both shuttles.

"He sucks at pep talks." Freddy complained making Kathy snort in laughter.

Later both shuttles were shot up into space and the intense shaking finally stopped.

"Wow." Kathy got out of her chair and floated to one of the windows and looked down at the planet.

"This is space! 'Course, we're just in the beginning part of space. We…we haven't gotten to outer space yet," Oscar was practically giddy making Kathy laugh lightly.

Kathy kept working on the computer systems of Freedom and Independence. They started to approach the cosmonaut space station.

"Alright, guys, remember the Russian space station has been up there for eleven years. Most of us don't have cars that old. Now, the cosmonaut on board has been on that tin can for eighteen months, alone. So don't be surprised if he's a little...Off." Dan Truman offered making Kathy grin.

"Can't be any worse than Sherlock right Ron?" Kathy asked over the com knowing that if Dan was there, then Ron wasn't far away.

"He just made a so-so motion with his hand." Dan offered back making Kathy laugh.

"That's my Ron." She chortled lightly.

The two crews docked and entered the space station. Kathy looked at the equipment curiously and she heard Will come up to her before he looked around.

"Where the hell is this guy?" Will asked looking some more. "Anybody home?!" He shouted through the station.

"WELCOME EVERYBODY!" A man dropped down from the ceiling in front of Kathy making her shriek.

"JESUS CHRIST!" She shouted toppling backwards where she was caught awkwardly by Will.

"Nice entrance." AJ grinned at Oscar who rolled his eyes.

"At least Sharpe managed to cop a feel." Rockhound smirked and Kathy scowled at him not noticing the scathing look Will shot him at the same time.

"Oscar would you please?" Kathy asked and Oscar slapped Rockhound in the head. "Thank you."

The cosmonaut had been speaking the whole time but they hadn't really paid attention until he turned to all of them.

"Computer person…which one?" He asked and Kathy rose her hand and he nodded. "I need you and one other, you…" He motioned to AJ.

"Go with him." Will nodded to AJ who looked a little freaked out.

The two of them followed Lev into a hole in the station they had to put on special suits.

Kathy listened to Lev tell AJ what to watch for and then he told her to check the computer readings from his station and into the shuttles.

"I have no idea what he just said." AJ whined and Kathy smirked.

"Which part?" She asked and he huffed in defeat.

"All of it."

"He wants you to keep an eye on the gauges. If it goes to this number call him by hitting the button and the camera over there zooms in on you. Now he said if something goes wrong to pull the lever right there."

"But what is Lev?" AJ asked confusedly and Kathy snorted in laughter.

"It's his name. Now I have to run diagnostics on this rattle trap called a station."

Roughly ten minutes later AJ sounded like he was getting nervous and Kathy looked over and frowned seeing the needle rising on the gauge.

"Where the hell are these thermal variations coming from?" She asked herself and got onto her tablet and tried to hack into the station. "This piece of shit won't recognize my machines. You'd better call for Lev."

AJ hit the button that would patch him through to the station but he wasn't getting any response.

"Shit…" Kathy moved to AJ's side and frowned.

"Okay I'm aborting." AJ started to tug on the lever for the shut down.

"Don't pull on it too hard or else it will snap…" Kathy warned him and heard metal breaking and she glared at him. "Kind like that."

"This thing is getting worse Kathy!" AJ shouted over the loud alarms and noises.

Lev finally noticed that AJ was screaming into the camera in fear. Lev raced through the station shouting worriedly and Will Sharpe rushed after him.

"What's wrong?!"

"We have leak, LEAK! Get your men back to your shuttles now!" Lev shouted to him and Will paled in fear and rushed towards where AJ and Kathy were.

"AJ! KATHY!" He shouted worriedly. "Get out of there now!" Will started shouting for them to get out.

"Did he just call me Kathy?" She looked at AJ in surprise.

"PULL LEVER!" Lev shouted down to them making Kathy roll her eyes.

"THIS 'IS' THE LEVER!" AJ shouted back still holding the piece of metal in his hand. "You done?" He asked Kathy who nodded and tucked her tablet into her suit. "Get out of here then, I'm right behind you!"

Kathy was hurrying up the ladder out of the pit with AJ climbing behind her.

"Kathy look out there's a fire coming!" AJ shouted and Kathy tried to hurry more but slipped on the top rung and started to drop towards the flames.

"NO!"

Kathy heard a panicked shout from above and she felt her arm being caught before she fell too far and two hands hauled her up and out of the pit and onto a body who had fallen in their haste to pull her out. The blast of flames exited the opening behind her and she scrambled to stand up in fear.

"AJ?!" She shouted in fear.

"I'm still here! Sharpe get her back to the Shuttle!" AJ hollered back and Kathy noticed that Will Sharpe had been the one to rip her from certain death and he was now standing behind her grabbing onto her shoulders.

"NO DAMMIT! I NEED TO GET AJ OUT OF THERE!" She fought against Will's arms but he wouldn't budge and he hauled her up into his arms and forced her to leave.

Will bumped into Max Davis and handed her off to him.

"Get her back to your shuttle! We need to evac!"

"You called me Kathy." Kathy stated over all the noise and Will shot her an irritated expression and she smirked at him. She quickly leaned forward and pressed her lips to his as Max rolled his eyes.

Max and Tony were starting the take off procedure when they heard banging on the hatch and AJ screaming bloody murder. Bear and Freddy opened the hatch letting in AJ and the Russian Cosmonaut Lev Andropov. Kathy laughed in relief and pulled the younger man into a hug.

"I'd hate to lose one of my only two minions." She sighed ruffling his hair.

"Who's the other minion?" Oscar asked curiously and she laughed out loud.

"Who do you think Luke?" She answered and Oscar nodded understanding what she meant and everybody started to relax as they piloted away from the station as it blew.

"Independence Crew is onboard and accounted for, we're even heavy one Cosmonaut." Max informed Shuttle Freedom.

"Intense huh?" Freddy asked Lev while they floated around the shuttle.

"That's why I say 'touch nothing' but you are a bunch of cowboys!"

"They're Americans…" Kathy offered to the Russian who sighed in agreement.

"Freedom Colonel lunged into the pit to pull you out." Lev Andropov smirked at her.

"I guess he did, didn't he?" Kathy mentioned quietly and AJ came over to her and touched her shoulder.

"You didn't see his face Kathy, he freaked out when you slipped and started falling towards the flames." AJ informed her lightly and she frowned at him. "Do you think he might have feelings that are not strictly sexual?" He asked her and she sighed.

"We only met a few weeks ago, we can't possibly have feelings for one another!" Kathy frowned worriedly.

"Just making an observation." AJ put his hands up in surrender.


	11. Dancing to Rocket Man and Dinner Time

Five hours later everybody was trying not to go insane because it was going to be fifty-five more hours before they reached the moon. Kathy looked over and saw Freddy Noonan listening to his ITunes. She approached him and tapped on the shoulder.

"Yeah?" He asked and she smirked.

"What are you listening to?" She asked and he grinned and let her put in one of the ear buds and she snorted in laughter. "Rocket Man? Seriously?"

Freddy shrugged with an impish grin on his face and Kathy looked around and motioned for Freddy to wait a minute. She came back over to him with two pieces of paper, tape and scissors.

"Can I do something?" She asked and he nodded in confusion. Kathy rolled the two pieces of paper and turned them into cones. She then used the tape to make sure they stayed like that. She then got the scissors and snipped the larger ends of the cone like objects so they flared out more. She took his ITunes and the ear buds. She put the ear buds into both cones and turned on the device and turned the music up.

The end result was that the paper cones amplified the music and it filled the shuttle. Freddy Noonan's eyes went wide and he gaped at the invention.

"Dude, did you just make speakers out of paper?!"

"I know my way around devices." Kathy smirked at him and he laughed out loud.

"Where is that music coming from?" Tim Halsey entered the area confusedly. "Are those paper speakers?" He questioned with a huff of laughter.

"Why yes they are." Kathy informed him and he stuck his head back out in the hallway.

"HEY GUYS! MCDANIELS CREATED PAPER MUSIC SPEAKERS!" He shouted to everyone else.

Soon enough everybody came into the area and laughed seeing that they had their own stereo system.

"Care to dance?" Oscar asked Kathy and she laughed and took his hand.

"Should we pipe this through to Freedom? I'm sure they'd love some music over there. Those poor old guys need some tunes." Tony Tucker mentioned and Bear laughed.

"Neither of the drillers over there like Rocket Man." Bear offered.

"They can't argue how appropriate the song is." Kathy argued and Max Davis grinned at her and walked over to the com system.

Max flipped the com system on the dashboard and patched into Freedom's system.

Will frowned in confusion and Jennifer snorted in laugher hearing Rocket Man come over their com system.

"What is that Rocket Man? I hate that song." Rockhound whined and Chick laughed out loud.

"Independence why is Elton John on the coms?" Will Sharpe asked perplexed.

"McDaniels used two pieces of paper to make speakers. Then she put ear buds into them and projected the music. We decided to share with you Freedom."

"She's swift on her feet!" Oscar laughed twirling Kathy who huffed in laughter.

"Talk about swift, how did we not know you could dance like this?" AJ asked laughing at how well Oscar danced.

"We only have Watts to dance with over here, and I'm sure she'd rather murder all of us." Nathan Gruber admitted over the radio.

"Damn straight." Jennifer agreed over the radio making everybody laugh.

"I'll have to go next, but it'll have to wait until after this mission." Will mentioned casually.

"Dancing with me?" Jennifer asked worriedly and he rolled his eyes.

"Not you Watts, McDaniels."

"I'm pretty sure you've already danced with her a couple times." Rockhound teased the younger man who glared back at him.

AJ danced with Kathy next and she snorted in laughter at him.

"You dance better than you sing." She teased him and Freddy let out a loud bark of laughter.

"Ain't that the truth." Oscar shook his head and AJ glared at him.

"Me next." Freddy rose his hand and Kathy rolled her eyes.

The next song that came on had everybody staring at Freddy.

"Really man? It's The End of the World?" Tim Halsey asked making Freddy smirk.

"You heard he had Rocket Man, are you surprised?" Kathy asked as Freddy Noonan laughed and spun her around in the air.

Ten hours later they had their food in tubes.

"Is this supposed to resemble something?" Kathy asked with a disgusted grimace.

"These are ten times better than the armed forces mess kits." Max informed them.

"Don't you just add water to sand?" Bear asked with a smirk.

"Yeah basically."

"So what is the deal with you and Sharpe?" Freddy asked Kathy who sighed in dismay.

"Best part is, you can't hide from them. You're stuck on this shuttle." Tony Tucker mentioned with a smirk.

"There is no deal, we just had sex."

"Supply room floor." Oscar teased her and AJ smirked.

"Shower." AJ added and she glared at them.

"It just happened." Kathy shrugged.

"Grace told me that she overheard Quincy saying that you find a target and tease the hell out of them until they break."

"Could we talk about something else please?" Kathy asked the men around the table. "How about how you idiots got arrested at a strip club?" She shot back at Freddy and Oscar.

"How about how you got Truman's baby pictures?" Tim Halsey asked Kathy who smirked.

"A magician never reveals their tricks." She answered him and he snorted in laughter. "How much longer is this trip?

After hearing the answer she sighed in defeat when Lev Andropov looked over at her curiously.

"Yes Lev?" She asked not looking but knowing he was staring at her.

"You and Colonel Sharpe screw in shower?" He asked making the others laugh out loud and she rolled her eyes in exasperation.

"YES OKAY! We had sex on the supply room floor! We had sex in the shower! We had sex in….oops…" She paled when she revealed more information then she wanted them to know and they 'all' snapped their heads to stare at her.

"There was a third time?" Bear asked with wide eyes.

"SHUT UP!" She snapped at him in embarrassment and they started to laugh and tease her more.

Later Kathy was looking at the nuclear bomb as Tim Halsey worked on it.

"You know, most normal people would be too freaked out to be near this thing." Tim informed her and she smirked.

"What ever gave you the idea I was 'normal'?" She asked and he huffed in laughter. "So you have the remote access set up for me to take a look?" He gave her a worried look and she sighed. "I want to make sure we can set this thing remotely or if something happens…"

"Happens?" Tim shot her a worried look.

"I'm a worse-case scenario kind of person. You can blame Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes for my paranoia."

"Well the remote detonator is right here." Tim showed her the information she needed.

"What if something happens to the remote? How do we blow it up?" Kathy asked looking at the nuke.

"If something happens to the detonator, then somebody would have to set it off manually." Tim Halsey admitted quietly and Kathy closed her eyes sadly knowing that it meant that somebody would have to stay and die.

"Well let's pray to God that doesn't happen." She offered with fake cheer and Tim nodded in agreement. "How does one work the manual detonator?"

"Lift, press, hold." Tim showed her what it would take to set off the nuke. Tim cleared his throat and decided to change the subject. "So, this thing with Colonel Sharpe? What do you think will happen?" He asked and she sighed in defeat. "I just ask because I've never seen him so beside himself." Tim put his hands up in surrender.

"What?"

"He has a very good handle on his emotions and control. You show up and he just loses every shred of control he's ever had."

"Well there is a giant asteroid heading right for us…that could shake anybody. Not to mention that the looks he gives Rockhound, I'm surprised that Sharpe hasn't had a heart attack or hasn't killed the driller yet."

"You never even realized it?!" Tim asked in laughter and she looked at him in confusion. "Anytime Sharpe gave Rockhound any kind of glare of doom was directly after the man said something sexual, derogatory, or suggestive about you!"


	12. We're hit, good luck Freedom

Meanwhile Freedom was enjoying their own dinner.

"I think I dissected something like this in college." Rockhound poked at his food making Nathan snort in laughter.

"You going to finish that?" Max asked Rock and the man slid his plate over to the larger driller.

"Not even surprised that you like this stuff Maxie." Rockhound grumbled.

Jennifer Watts excused herself early to keep an eye on the shuttle cockpit and Will came in next to get his 'food'.

"So Colonel, now that it is just us 'guys', how is McDaniels?" Rockhound asked point blank and Will glared at him angrily.

"Rock come on." Harry warned his friend.

"What?! I'm sure we are all curious to know if the computer genius is as brilliant in bed as she is with electronics." Rockhound defended himself.

Everybody stared at Rockhound in absolute horror, except Will who was just openly glowering at the man. They did see the man's cheeks reddening slightly creating a dark blush.

"Rockhound, if it was possible to murder somebody with their eyes: We'd have a dead body to deal with." Chick warned him this time and Rock looked over and saw the look on Sharpe's face.

"Never mind." Rock slouched in his chair in defeat. "But you guys have to admit her air force jokes were hilarious."

Nobody could argue with him on that point.

"I liked the one about knowing if a fighter pilot was in the bar." Harry smirked into his food.

Later Will was sitting in the pilot's seat when he heard Nathan Gruber sit in Jennifer's seat.

"I saw you grab McDaniels out of the pit."

"So?" Will asked looking out at the stars.

"What do you think will happen after this whole thing is over? I mean she has a life in England, a good paying job from what Quincy told me…"

"She goes home, we all continue with our lives." Will Sharpe answered shortly.

"You can't really believe that do you?"

"What do you want me to say Gruber?" Will glared at him.

"Nothing Colonel, but I've known you for years and not even Alice got this reaction out of you. McDaniels lit a fire inside of you that neither of us have seen the whole time we've known you."

"Do I have to dismiss you?" Will asked after a few seconds of silence and Nathan huffed in laughter.

"No need, I was just leaving. Just think about what I said Will." Nathan told him and left the cockpit. He didn't see the slight smirk on Will Sharpe's face when he left.

After everybody in the shuttles got some sleep they all woke up and were greeted by Dan Truman.

"Good morning crews, time to get ready. I guess we got a big day today." Dan sounded slightly worried and Kathy had to smirk sadly.

There were preparing for their roadrunner thrust move. They were going to slingshot around the moon and come up behind the asteroid.

"How fast were we supposed to go again?" Kathy asked and Tim Halsey shot her a worried smirk.

"Eleven G's." He informed her and by the absolute white look on her face the oil drillers knew it wasn't good.

"Do I even want to know what that equals?" Oscar asked feeling queasy.

"Truman told all of us during the final briefing." Max Davis told him.

"I was distracted by Rock's Looney Tunes reference." Oscar admitted sheepishly.

"We're going to go a little over twenty-two thousand miles per hour." Kathy explained to them and the oil drillers all turned a shade lighter.

"Okay people this is what you trained for…suck it up!" Max Davis shouted at them before they were shot into the slingshot.

Kathy felt her eyes being sucked into the back of her head and she groaned in discomfort.

"Don't worry this is normal!" Oscar shouted and Kathy breathed through the pressure that felt like it was now crushing her chest cavity.

"How would you know?!" Bear shouted at him in pain.

They were at 9 g's when Oscar admitted defeat.

"THIS ISN'T NORMAL!" He shouted feeling the pressure increasing even more.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN?!" Bear shouted worriedly.

"THIS IS WAAAY WORSE!" Oscar whined and Kathy rolled her eyes.

"ALL OF YOU SHUT THE BLOODY FUCK UP!"

"She is terrifying when she's mad." AJ grunted while Lev started laughing.

"We are maxed at twenty-two thousand!" Tony Tucker shouted as the shuttle started to even out.

"I think my brain just flew back and hit Freddy." Kathy whined in pain making the guys around her huff in laughter.

"I wondered what that massive thing was." Freddy offered back with a grin.

"Wow…" AJ muttered seeing the asteroid up close and personal.

Kathy looked and paled in wonder seeing how big the asteroid.

"Houston you have to see this to believe it."

Kathy frowned when she heard Will Sharpe on the Freedom. Her breathe caught when she suddenly had a really bad feeling. She leaned over and grabbed her computer gear and shoved it into her suit to protect it. She hadn't had this bad of feeling since she was younger. She had a bad feeling and sent Mycroft to look for Sherlock because neither of them had seen him for a few months. Mycroft had called her later that day and informed her that he had found Sherlock within a drug den barely alive.

"There's too much debris!" Max Davis shouted trying to keep them from getting hit.

"We need too peel off!" Tony Tucker shouted.

"Negative!" Max shook his head when a decent sized rock clipped into their shuttle throwing them into chaos. "Mayday Freedom Mayday! We are out of control and we are going down! Do you read me? Freedom, we are going down!" Max shouted through the radio and Kathy closed her eyes feeling tears collecting. "Everybody, go to your life support!"

Oscar was trying to get his helmet back on while AJ tried to grab his from the air near the ceiling.

"I CAN'T GET IT ON!" Oscar shouted in panic and Kathy got out of her chair and slammed the helmet down and locked it for him. "Thanks…but get back to your seat!"

"Lock yourself in the cargo bay! We are going down, Houston! Houston, we are going down! We have lost control!" He paused for a moment before he added quietly, "Good luck, Freedom."

"Oh my God, this is it." Tony Tucker muttered darkly and one large rock slammed head first into the main windshield.

It shattered into pieces creating an automatic sucking of everything that wasn't bolted down. That included Freddy Noonan, Max and Tony.

"FREDDY MAX TONY!" Kathy screamed in pain seeing her friends getting killed. She felt Tim Halsey shove her back because she was barely holding onto her seat as it was. "TIM LOOK OUT!" Kathy shouted but it was too late a piece of shuttle debris went flying and embedded into the man and she felt a sob catch in her throat. She lost her grip on the chair and would've been sucked out if it hadn't been for a certain large oil driller grabbing her body and pulling her to him in a tight grip.

"I got you baby girl…" Bears words were the last thing Kathy heard as she lost consciousness. Her thoughts were muddled between Ron, Mycroft, Sherlock, John, Dan Truman and a certain Air Force Colonel with blue eyes.


	13. Broken Hearts and Iron Ferrite

"Sharp, what the hell is that!? Is that the Independence?!" Harry asked in horror as Tony Tucker's body slammed into their front window.

When they had heard the first shout from Max Davis that they had been hit and were now going down everybody in Freedom had paled in panic. Will Sharpe let his eyes close as he heard Kathy McDaniels screaming out for her crewmates. His breathe caught in his chest and he opened his eyes determined to continue.

"Houston, Independence is a dead stick. They're not gonna make it." Will offered through the radio and they watched as the ship smashed into the asteroid. "Houston, Independence has gone down." Will admitted and everybody on Freedom and Houston heard his voice break slightly. "When I touch this baby down, full reverse thrust." Will ordered through a clenched jaw.

"Got it." Jennifer Watts nodded seemingly ignoring the slight tremble in Will's voice.

"Give me RCS thrusters! Hang tight, hang tight!" He glanced at the radar. "Houston, we overshot our landing field. We overshot our landing field."

"Oh no!" Rock cried out in despair as they landed on the asteroid.

"You okay?" Jennifer asked quietly but Will ignored her and kept working.

"Initiate system light system check. Make sure we can still get off this rock." Will bit back a wave of emotions.

"Electrical system is screwed. I'm switching to back-up. Fuel seals, check. Engine seals, check. Pressure seals, check." Jennifer offered trying not to cause him any more stress.

"Anyone hurt?" Will turned to everybody else finally addressing them.

"Where-Where's the other shuttle" Rockhound panted. "What happened to the other shuttle?"

"Independence is off the grid." Will's voice broke slightly and he brushed past the seated man.

"Off the grid!? What are you a freakin' cyborg? What does that mean?!" Rockhound snapped in despair.

"Rock…" Harry shook his head warningly at the man who looked down sadly at the floor. Harry had seen the heart break in Sharpe's eyes as he fled the cockpit.

"You saw it yourself, right? They're gone." Nathan Gruber offered quietly to Rockhound and the genius nodded his head.

"God…" Max sobbed.

"Let's just ask God to take care of our friends." Harry told them gruffly. "May they rest in peace."

"Amen," Chick finished.

"We've got eight hours. Let's get this job done and go home." He turned to Max as Chick opened the cargo bay hatch. "All right, let's get the tools unpacked and fire up the Armadillo."

Jennifer was shaking her head sadly and she looked back at Nathan. He sighed sadly and leaned forward.

"You should go check on him Jen. You have more tact than I do."

Jennifer stood up from her system check and she hurried after Will. She found him sitting against one of the cargo tanks. He had his head in his hands and she saw his shaking shoulders.

"Will?" She asked quietly and he jolted his head up and looked at her in shock. Jennifer saw the tears on his cheeks. "Were you in love with her?"

"It doesn't matter Watts, we have a job to do." Will offered brokenly and he stood up to wipe his face off.

"Will, I'm sorry." She tried again but he ignored her words and kept working.

"I'm not getting a damn thing on the inertial navigation system." Will started back to work and ignored the tightness in his chest.

"I know where we are," Rockhound announced as he looked at the information and Will shoved him out of the way.

"Please step away." Will requested and he looked over to Jennifer. "Radio signal's dead."

"I'm flipping the back-up generator." Jennifer stated as she moved past the crew. "Radio signal's gonna be cut in half until we get main power back." She sighed sadly seeing how hard Will was working to ignore that his best friend Max Davis was dead, and he had lost the one girl that put the life back into him.

"We're in segment 202, lateral grid nine, site fifteen-H-thirty-two, give or take a few yards." Rock declared, dropping grid papers onto the table. "Captain America here blew the landing by twenty-six miles." He added sarcastically and Harry rolled his eyes at the man in exasperation.

"How the hell do you know that?" Will asked leaning against the wall with his back towards them.

"Because I'm a genius." Rockhound shot him an insulted look.

"The gauges won't read." Jennifer announced as she came back in. "They're all peaked like we're plugged into some magnetic field."

"Well who on this space ship wants to know why?" Rock demanded with an eye roll and Will sighed in defeat.

"By all means." Will stated simply as Nathan Gruber slid his chair closer to listen.

"The reason we were shooting for grid eight is because thermo graphics indicated that grid nine was compressed iron ferrite. Which means that you landed us on a Goddamn iron plate." Rockhound snapped sarcastically and Will's expression darkened even more.

"All right, well you heard the man. Let's wheel out the remote satellite link. We need that radio." The crew began heading down the ladder to the cargo bay. "Gruber, get the satellite ready while I suit up. Then you get suited up."

"On it."


	14. 4 survivors and angry agruments

Kathy felt like something was crushing her to death and realized it was a large man.

"Bear, you dead?" She asked worriedly and he groaned in pain.

"Death isn't this painful." Bear grumbled darkly and they heard AJ screaming in despair.

"OSCAR!"

Kathy felt tears filling her eyes again because she knew that Oscar was obviously dead.

"HELLO! IS THERE ANYBODY ELSE ALIVE?!" AJ screamed in panic.

"I can't answer him yet…my body hurts too much to breath let alone shout."

"AJ!"

Both Kathy and Bear heard Lev's voice holler for him.

"LEV WHERE ARE YOU?!"

"Right here."

"There's no one else." AJ shook his head in shock and Lev sighed and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"I know."

"Could somebody get this big guy offa me please?" Kathy coughed trying to move from underneath Bear.

"Kathy?" AJ asked in surprise. "BEAR!" AJ sounded even more happy when Bear groaned.

"I ain't never been so glad to see your ugly face." Bear greeted the two men and rolled off of Kathy. "Managed to grab me up a techie."

"You are really 'not' light." Kathy tried to stand up and she almost fell when she put weight on her right leg.

"You okay?" AJ caught her and she grimaced.

"I think I twisted my ankle."

"I checked, the armadillo it's still operable." AJ helped her move to the cargo bay.

"Well that was extremely lucky." She grunted in pain as the four of them made their way to the armadillo.

"We're only four astronauts left now." Lev commented sadly and he heard AJ scoff.

"We're not astronauts. We're oil drillers. We're not even supposed to be here." AJ admitted and the other three could hear the stress and fear in his voice.

"What?" Lev demanded. "You're not astronauts?" Lev looked at them worriedly.

"I'm just a computer person, I built and programmed the computers inside of the shuttles." Kathy admitted quietly thinking about seeing Tony, Freddy and Max get pulled out of the shuttle.

"I'm getting us out of here," A.J. announced, climbing up to the hatch of the Armadillo. "Get in." AJ ordered everybody and Kathy nodded and grabbed some padding that was left behind.

"What are you doing?" Bear asked confusedly.

"When we get into the armadillo I'm going to check my ankle. If it's just twisted I can use this to pad the leg of my suit so it immobilizes the injury."

"That is brilliant." Lev grumbled to himself.

"I can thank John Watson for any and all medical knowledge."

The four of them were situated inside the armadillo now and AJ was in the drivers seat.

"Lemme show you how we do things back home." AJ said before he used the gun on the drill to shoot an opening into the wall of the crashed shuttle.

"When he says 'back home' he means 'America'. Obviously their way of dealing with things is shooting the shit out of it." Kathy grumbled darkly and AJ glared at her. "Don't look at me like that. We're still pissed about being kicked off the land by farmers armed with pitchforks and shotguns." AJ heard that and couldn't stop the snort of laughter and he shook his head.

"Hold on!" A.J. ploughed through the wreckage of their shuttle, breaking ice and rock along the way as everybody inside of it held on for their lives. Only when the field before them cleared up enough did A.J. finally slow down.

They were now driving across the asteroid and Lev looked at AJ curiously.

"Now that I know that you are not astronauts…Do you know what you're doing, man?" He asked AJ quietly and AJ just blew up.

"You know what? NO! I have no idea what I'm doing!" AJ shouted angrily and Kathy placed a soothing hand on his shoulder but he was still too keyed up to relax. He needed to vent or else he would end up crashing the armadillo. "I have no idea! This button? I have no idea what that does, okay? All I know it, that we just crashed back there, I lost two of my friends, we're twenty-five miles from Harry's shuttle, we don't know if he's alive. We don't know if he can fly! All I know is that there's a beep on this thing, and I'm trying to get us there!"

"Feel better?" Kathy asked sadly and AJ shot her dark expression but nodded in defeat. "I had a bad feeling as soon as I heard Colonel Sharpe say something to Houston. I grabbed all my computer gear and shoved it into my suit." The three guys looked at her confusedly. "My tablet is telling me that the beeping is a proximity alert. The closer we get, the faster the beeping."

"If we find them, Freedom Colonel will back flip seeing you." Lev grumbled making AJ smirk, Bear snicker and Kathy glowered at the three of them.

"Sharpe, I'm getting something!" Jennifer shouted over to Will who practically shoved her out of the way.

"Houston, this is Freedom. We have landed safely. We are at site coordinates fifteen H dash thirty-two. We're also having electric and antennae difficulties but we have commenced drilling. Shuttle flight capability not yet known. Houston?" The static became overbearing over the radio. "Houston? We lost 'em." He handed the radio back to Jennifer and ordered. "Get 'em back." He turned away and spoke into his radio as Jennifer Watts rolled her eyes at him. "Gruber, we need that hook up."

"Houston, do you copy? This is Freedom." Jennifer started to try again and she looked over at Will. "You need to relax Will, giving yourself a heart attack won't solve anything."

Will heard the lift activate and headed down to the cargo bay to let them inside. He pulled the lever and the doors opened for Harry and Chick.

"Let's get it unpacked," Harry was saying to his friend.

"What's up?" Will questioned, following them.

"We're drilling through some type of metal I've never seen before. It's fried two of our drill bits and now we blew our first transmission."

"So how deep are we?"

"We could use your help with the transmission, Colonel." Harry ignored the question and grabbed the dolly.

"I have an assessment report due _now_. We're supposed to be at two hundred feet, so, how deep are we?"

"Not as deep as we'll be when you quit askin' me all these questions and help us load this transmission on." Will heard Harry and his eyes narrowed at the older man.

"What is our current depth?" Will tried again but Harry seemed to want to 'not' answer the question.

"Our current depth is not important, Colonel."

"I'll decide what's important. We've got eight hundred feet to drill. You've had two and a half hours. _Where are we?_ " Will had enough with the conversation.

"We're at fifty-seven feet. Now if you're not too busy maybe you can give us a hand with this transmission." Will's face fell and he bolted back to the communication room where Jennifer was still working on the radio. "Colonel Sharp!" Harry called after him.

"I need that radio, Gruber." Will ordered the munitions expert and he approached Jennifer. "I need to talk to control."

" _All right, I'm comin' through,"_ Gruber announced from the satellite. _"We have contact."_

"That's as clear as it's gonna get." Will grabbed the radio, basically hip-checking Jennifer out of the way.

"Houston, this is Freedom. Do you copy? Working on a remote satellite link at this moment. Transmission change: twenty minutes-"

"Colonel!?" Harry tried again but Will ignored him and took out a card and started to read it.

"-Puts drilling final at ten hours. Please advise that's four hours past zero barrier. Please advise." Will felt Harry grab the card from his hand.

"What the hell is this? 'Zero depth'? Where'd this come from?" he directed at Sharp. "Who you talkin' to? Is that Truman? Let me have that phone." He yanked the radio from Will's hands as the colonel got up in irritation. "Gimme the phone. Truman! Look, this is what happens when you drill. Who wrote this thing by the way?" Harry yelled towards the taller man.

"We're losing coms." Jennifer warned as the static kicked up again.

"Is he getting this?" Harry called back as Sharpe came back into the room. "Does he hear me? What's wrong with this?"

"The com's down." Will shouted at Harry who looked confused.

"What do you mean 'the com's down'?"

"What do I mean?! I mean we've lost communication to mission control."

"Fine. Let's go back to the cargo bay and get the transmission-"

"Hey, Harry, guess what," Will snapped at Harry . "Ya had your shot. You didn't do it, ya understand me? You blew it."

"Will!" Jennifer snapped at the man in front of her.

"Why don't you stay here and take orders from a cue card!?" Harry shot back at Sharpe.

"Stamper!" Jennifer tried to subdue the two men but they ignored her.

"Write a report, why don't ya? That'll be helpful!" Harry berated Will as he shoved him into a chair.

"GUYS!"

"My men and I will go get this hole dug!" Harry shouted angrily and Will rounded on Harry finally at the end of his patience and emotional turmoil.

"You and your men are the biggest mistake in the history of NASA!"

"WILL!" Jennifer stared at her friend in shock.

Will glared at Harry before he stalked away back towards the cockpit. Jennifer sighed in defeat and looked at Harry.

"Look Stamper just go and get the transmission…Will…he's not dealing with McDaniels too well…"

"You think I don't know that?!" Harry snapped at her tiredly and she lowered her head.

"I'm trying to keep him from spiraling out of control, and I can't do that if you keep pushing his buttons." Harry nodded at her words and he left to go help Chick with the transmission.

Jennifer Watts entered the cockpit and saw Will unlocking the ship's safe. Her eyes widened in shock seeing him grab some papers out and a pistol. He gave her a look of indecision before he swallowed and sighed.

"I need that radio." Will stated simply and he went back to the radio to talk to Gruber. "Gruber, give me everything you've got. _Now_."

" _Roger that."_ Nathan Gruber didn't like the tone of voice Will had and he started to worry that something was wrong.


	15. Boiling Over Emotions

Harry and Chick were getting the new transmission when Chick heard a beeping sound. His eyes focused on the nuclear bomb as the clock started.

"Harry…?" Chick's voice for the first time Harry had ever known him had an edge of fear in it. "The clock on that nine foot nuclear weapon is ticking…"

Harry's eyes went wide in horror.

"Oh my god…SHARPE GET BACK HERE NOW!"

Will came sliding down the ladder into the cargo section.

"It just came on all by itself!" Harry explained rapidly. "Wh-what the hell's happening?!"

"Secondary protocol." Will started rolling the bomb to the rear of the shuttle.

"What's that? What?" Chick asked worriedly.

"Secondary protocol." Will tried to get the bomb off of the shuttle.

"What does that mean?" Chick asked again but was ignored again.

"What the hell's secondary protocol?" Harry asked this time and Will nearly growled in anger.

"They're detonating this thing from earth. We need to-"

"What do you mean 'detonating'? We haven't even drilled the hole yet!" Harry started to get pissed off again.

"We'll drop it in the hole and go," Sharpe continued to prep the bomb and Chick's eyes widened even more.

"Whoa whoa!" Chick took his hands off the bomb as Sharpe began to strap it down.

"Oh no, no," Chick insisted meekly. "H-how ya turn it off?"

"Colonel Sharp, I got two men out on that rock!" Harry argued and Will bit his lip in exasperation.

"I got a man out there, too! We gotta evac now!" Will glared at Harry.

"Max! Rockhound! Get back to the shuttle, double time!" Harry shouted into the radio.

"Hey wait a minute! How do you turn this thing off?!" Chick was still trying to get the other guys to notice that there was a ticking nuke beside them.

Will ignored them both and he worked on the straps of the bomb.

"I'm not leaving without my men, Sharpe!" Harry told him adamantly.

"We've got two-and-a-half minutes to drop it and get off this rock. If they're not back by the time we finish, we leave without 'em." Will shook his head and Chick huffed in disbelieving laughter.

"Okay, let's simplify this. Let's just turn the bomb off." Chick added again trying not to show how freaked out he was getting.

"If you don't put this bomb down in a hole eight hundred feet onto a fault line all you're gonna have is a real expensive firework show!" Harry screamed at Will but he still ignored him.

"This is turning into a surrealistic nightmare…" Chick whined in despair at the scene unfolding in front of him.

"Give us the time, Sharpe. Shut this bomb down, now!" Harry ordered the younger man.

"It's not my call!" Will finally answered him.

"Then who's call is it?!" Harry growled angrily.

"The order to detonate can only come from the president." Will explained and Harry's eyes widened in disbelief.

"The president's not here!" Harry exploded in anger. Heart-broken or not, he was about two seconds away from killing Will Sharpe.

"Turn it off right now." Chick kept trying but Will ignored him.

"You gotta give us more time!" Harry continued yelling. "I'm tellin' you, shut this bomb down now!"

"And I'm telling you it's not my call!" Will roared finally letting the emotional stress get the best of him.

"Well guess what?" Harry turned and grabbed a giant set of pliers. "I just made the call for you." Harry went to raise the pliers in the air fully intent on slamming them into the nuke. Harry faced a pistol now aiming at his face and Will was breathing in terror.

"Don't." Will started to break slightly. "You could set it off."

"Oh man." Chick shook his head in horror. "What're you doin' with a gun in space?"

The airlock hissed and Nathan Gruber came in and seeing what was going on he dropped his helmet and gloves and approached Chick quietly.

"This thing is gonna blow," Will continued. "We gotta get it off the ship."

"what the fuck did I miss?" Nathan whispered worriedly to Chick.

"Sharpe is losing his shit and about to blow us all up." Chick offered just as worried.

"Shut this bomb down and let us finish our job the right way." Harry insisted still holding the massive pliers.

"I'm under orders to protect the surface detonation." Will argued back.

"I'm gonna give you three seconds to shut this bomb down and then I'm gonna make you shoot me." Harry challenged Will Sharpe and everybody's eyes widened realizing that Harry Stamper was serious.

The nuke suddenly powered down.

"What happened?" Chick asked confusedly and Nathan Gruber shrugged not sure what was going on.

Will looked down at the machine and Harry wasted no time to slam the pliers down onto his arm knocking the gun out of his hand. Will cried out in pain and the gun went flying out of his hand. Will made a grab for the weapon only to have Nathan Gruber kick it away from him and over towards Chick who picked it up. Harry then used the pliers to clamp around Will Sharpe's neck and he started to struggle for air.

"Bring me all the way up here just to blow me and my friends up? Is that it?" Harry was finally in a mood that he was probably going to kill the man now.

"Listen…" Will fought to get the word out.

"Shut up! Shut up, Colonel. I'm talking now!" Harry growled angrily.

"It could start again." Will struggled to tell Harry. "It might've been a warning."

The lift hissed again and this time Rock and Max joined them.

"Uh-oh," Max commented with his eyes widening.

"That's why you're gonna dismantle this bomb," Harry instructed his pliers prisoner.

"All right." Rock spoke up. "What'd we miss?"

Then the nuke powered up again and they all groaned in despair.

"Oh geez. Here we go again." Chick's displeasure couldn't have been clearer.

"What're you doin' up here?" Harry asked Will. "Why did you even bother to make the trip?"

"To do the right thing," Will choked out. "To see that it's done."

Harry finally released the pliers from his neck and Will started to gasp in air.

"Then for God's sake, think about what you're doin'. Why are you listening to someone that's a hundred thousand miles away? We're here. Nobody down there can help us. 'Cause if we don't get this job done, everybody's gone. My men would have died for nothing. Your friends would've died for nothing. McDaniels would have wanted us to finish the job that we were sent to do." Harry knew he probably shouldn't mention her name but he needed some kind of catalyst to snap Sharpe out of it.

"One minute," Chick read off.

"I have been drilling holes in the earth for thirty years and I have never, _never_ missed a depth that I have aimed for. And by God I am not gonna miss this one; I will make eight hundred feet."

"Forty-two seconds."

"But I can't do it alone, Colonel, I need your help."

"You swear on your daughter's life, on my family's, that you can hit that mark." Will finally snapped out and they could all hear the emotions running rampant through him.

"I will make eight hundred feet. I swear to God I will." Harry promised and Will for some strange reason believed him.

"Then let's turn this bomb off." Will nodded and Harry helped him stand up. Nathan hurried to his side and the two of them started to work on the bomb. "Steady. Steady. Take it back. That's what you have to do. Get 'em off backwards."

"Rainbow track. Under-under one?" Nathan asked and Will shook his head.

"All of 'em. All of 'em!"

"Free of static?" Nathan asked as they began to go through the wires.

Everybody could hear Rockhound muttering 'do a good job' over and over again.

"Go! Go! Go! Red wire A. Ready and now." Will cut a wire. "Come on, come on, come on, _come on_!" Nathan blew out a breath as the sweat rolled down his face.

"Negative B, ready and-" They snipped the wire mentioned. "Track flipped," Nathan continued. "Hots in."

"It better be. Go!" Will shook his head and Nathan looked at him as they got closer to where they needed to be.

"Red or blue?" Nathan asked and Will froze for a second.

"Red…no…blue." Will snipped the blue wire instead and the nuke timer stopped with two seconds left. "Okay I think I'm going to hurl…" Will muttered darkly and Nathan huffed in exasperated laughter.

"Good job." Rock choked out in fear.

"God it sucks up here." Max shook his head and the large driller just walked away.

Jennifer came in and looked at the guys and she knew she missed something big.

"I got through and retained contact with control." She mentioned and Harry shoved past her and took the radio.

"Houston, you have a problem. See I promised my little girl that I'd be comin' home. Now I don't know what you people are doin' down there, but we got a hole to dig up here." Harry ordered through the radio and they could almost hear the nerds from NASA cheering.

"All right. You're doin' a good job." Rockhound supervised the now drilling group as Will was out on the asteroid with them.

"How deep are we?" Will asked Harry.

"Give me a depth reading, Max."

"We're at 150 feet, Harry."

"Yee-haw! Ride 'em, cowboy! Yippee-kai-yay-kai-yo!"

The men heard Rock humming the William Tell Overture. Nathan shot Will a disturbed expression.

"I'm too terrified to look." Nathan admitted quietly and Will turned and saw that Rockhound was on top of the nuke riding it like a horse.

"Get off…the nuclear…warhead…" Will stated every word with deliberative slowness.

"I was doin' that guy from that movie, ya know? _Slim Pickens_? Where he rides it all the way in, the nuclear warhead," Rock explained casually and saw Will Sharpe's right eye twitch.

"Now…" Will ordered still retaining his commanding stature.

"Oh, you didn't see that one, huh?"

"We got seven hundred feet of hole to dig, Rockhound," Harry warned his crazy friend.

"All right. Just-just wanted to feel the power between my legs, brother." He climbed off of the weapon and looked over at Will. "Hey, Sharpe! No nukes! No nukes! No nukes!" Rockhound started to throw his arms around like he was protesting and Will sighed in exasperation.

"You got anymore bullets in that gun, Sharpe?" Harry asked and Will looked over at him. "Got to give you props though, my men and I bet that you would've throttled him by now."

"I am 'not' that bad…" Will shot back and Harry snorted in laughter.

"We started the bet the first time he said anything about McDaniels when you were around. Honestly during that final briefing I thought you were going to go over the table and kill him."

Will blushed when he was reminded about that briefing it had been when everybody had found out he and Kathy McDaniels had some 'special' time in the shower.


	16. Putting Evel Kinevil to Shame

The four astronauts inside the armadillo pulled to stop and they got out. Bear helped Kathy walk over to the other two men. They all stared in horror at the massive canyon that separated them from the continuing beeping sound. Kathy sighed in defeat but she was not willing to admit it so easily.

"What we just happened to run into the Grand Canyon on the asteroid?!" AJ whined in despair.

"I told you that you took a wrong way, wrong road." Lev admitted and Kathy gaped at the man.

"Oh Sherlock would have a field day with you…" She muttered darkly shaking her head and Bear snickered.

"What?! What roads?! Do you see any roads around here?!" AJ fired back at the older man.

"You know what? I do not have much pleasure being near God's ear. But, you think this is looking good, or what?" Lev argued back and AJ lost his cool again.

"Lev, why don't you just do humanity a favor and shut the hell up?!" AJ launched a rock away from him and they watched it soar slowly over the canyon.

"Have you ever heard of Evel Knievel?" AJ asked the Russian and Kathy frowned before she saw the look on AJ's face.

"No, I never saw Star Wars." Lev shook his head and Kathy knew what AJ was thinking.

"FUCKING BRILLIANT!" She shouted surprising the three men. "YOU MY FRIEND, ARE FUCKING BRILLIANT!" Kathy pointed to AJ who smirked. "Never thought I'd use that phrase to describe one of you idiots…no offense." Kathy sort of apologized and AJ shrugged.

"None taken…" He ceded her point.

"If you can figure out where to jump from, I can program the DAT'S and have them stop and start when we need them to during the sailing."

"We jump, stop the DATS, sail for a bit, and start the DATS we land." AJ ended for Kathy and she laughed at the insane idea but she still high fived the man beside her.

The four of them got back into the armadillo and Kathy pulled out her computer gear and jacked into the mainframe of the machine.

"What did Watts tell you Bear? That if she kicked you in the balls, you'd keep floating?" AJ asked and Bear nodded still not sure what was actually going on.

"I'm not sure Bear actually understood what she was saying, he, Rockhound and Oscar were too busy checking her out." Kathy mentioned worriedly making AJ roll his eyes.

"Lev run the idea back." AJ snapped at everybody.

"We turn the thrusters off exactly when we jump, we sail over, turn the thrusters on again and we going to go down nice and easy." Lev offered and AJ looked at him worriedly.

"Will it work?"

"I don't know…" Lev shrugged and AJ sighed in exasperation.

"You know what? Lie to me!" AJ snapped angrily.

"I'll say if it works, three of you will be heroes just like me." Lev admitted and Kathy glared at him this time.

"Some positive thinking would help." Kathy grumbled darkly as AJ drove into position. "Okay I'm in the computer and have access to the DATS." Kathy swallowed in fear. "Ready when you are minion number one." She mentioned and saw AJ's sad smirk both of them thinking about Oscar.

"Just for the record this is a really 'bad' idea!" Bear offered in panic and Kathy nodded.

"Somebody had to say it, glad it wasn't me this time." She pondered quietly making Lev quirk an eyebrow at her.

AJ hit the gas and the armadillo sped off towards the cliffs edge.

"Now!" AJ shouted and Lev hit the DATS button turning them off at the same time Kathy altered the DAT program. "It's working!" AJ shouted in surprised joy as they started to fly across the canyon. They then realized that there were multiple rock formations and they were heading right for them.

"Go left! Go left!" Lev shouted at AJ who growled in anger.

"I can't steer!" AJ shouted back and Kathy was working on her computer tablet checking on the machine as everybody bickered.

"OI! Shut the fuck up and focus!" She shouted at them sternly.

"Oh, okay, okay, we're floating into outer space," Lev mumbled, looking around in panic.

"Uh, this could be a little bit of a problem," AJ also looked around getting worried and Kathy sighed.

"Lev reactivate the thrusters. Time to see if this damn plan is worth it's weight in gold." Kathy told the Russian man.

"Something's wrong, they're not activating!" Lev screamed in panic. "I hate this machine!" Lev slammed his hand into the wall angrily. "That's it, I'm stepping outside!"

"Wait you're going 'outside'?!" AJ echoed in shock.

"I am the only certified astronaut, and _I am saving your American asses_!" Lev screamed at all of them.

"Uhm…English." Kathy rose her hand and Lev glared at her and stalked towards the hatch of the armadillo cursing in Russian. "OI! I know how to speak Russian! Ya cheeky rat bastard!" She hollered at him and Lev blushed slightly and shrugged in silent apology.

"Yea, you'll listen to him. Riiiight." Bear rolled his eyes sarcastically.

"Hurry up, Lev, because we're about a mile off the asteroid!" AJ whined in fear as he saw nothing but the rocks and how close they were getting to space.

" _Just a second, the fuel line is iced up_!" Lev called back through their earpieces. They hit the thrusters but it still didn't work. " _I'm sorry, AJ, I was way off the odds_ ," Lev apologized as he knocking ice off of the lines.

"We're getting higher, man!" Bear complained before a burst of rocks went flying for them.

Lev was knocked slightly off balance and he slammed into the windshield looking in at them.

" _Pull the thrusters_!" He screamed to them still holding onto the armadillo.

"Lev!" AJ tried to warn the Russian about the upcoming rock tower and Lev was knocked off of the windshield "We lost Lev!" AJ shouted in shock, trying to look around through the window.

" _AJ_!" Lev screamed through the radio. "HIT THE THRUSTERS!" Lev told them and AJ sighed in despair and slammed his hand into the switch praying to God that it worked. They heard the thrusters kick on and the Armadillo started to drop to the ground.

"Lev, hold on, we're comin' in!" AJ shouted through the radio. They hit the ground and the armadillo slowly slid to a stop.

"Holy shit…" Kathy's eyes were wide as saucers. "It actually worked…"

"Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Lord. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you." Bear began to repeat in relief and surprise that the plan had worked.

"AJ go see if Roger Ramjet managed to survive out there." Kathy ordered the younger man who snorted in laughter and popped his head outside looking around.

"Lev!" AJ grinned seeing the Russian standing up.

" _Now I'm really a Russian hero!"_ Lev celebrated, climbing up off of the ground to turn toward the Armadillo, finding AJ at the top.

"OI GET IN HERE YOU TWO!"

AJ and Lev both got back in and AJ manned the wheel again. There was a louder beep this time, and the time in between the beeps was getting shorter.

"Please tell me this means what I think it means?" Bear begged Kathy.

"I sure hope to God…" She muttered working on trying to connect to either the other armadillo or Freedom. She frowned and patched one line from the other side of the radio which the other three occupants heard.

'Get a hold of Truman, prepare the world for bad news.'

"That does 'not' sound good." Kathy admitted quietly and AJ nodded in agreement.

"On the plus side, it was Harry's voice." Bear mentioned quietly.


	17. Bad news, good news, great news

After that whole thing with the nuke the drillers and Sharpe seemed to work better together now.

"Rockhound, keep on that transmission." Harry ordered the crazy man.

"Tranny looks good, Harry." Rockhound muttered offhandedly.

"Alright. Lock it down, guys. Good job." Harry kept an eye on the drilling.

"How come we didn't get any training on this thing?"

Everybody barely heard Rockhound and didn't have time to get worried because Rock had found the same thing AJ had: The weapon firing device. He turned it on and it started to shoot the shit out of everything.

"Whoa, this is so much it's freaky!" Rock laughed and kept firing. "Meet your maker asteroid! Oops sorry Harry!" Rock apologized to Harry who had almost been hit. Harry charged at the crazy man and tackled him.

"What the hell's the matter with you?!" Harry yelled at him while Rock whined in pain.

"This is insane." Will shook his head at Nathan. "He's got space dementia. Harry you want to watch your guy?" Will asked worriedly and Harry shot him a scathing look before they all felt a slight rumble.

Harry looked over and saw some gas escaping the hole where Max was drilling.

"Max, downshift and put it in reverse. We gotta get that pipe outta there." Harry started calmly as not to make the man panic.

"What's happening?!" Max asked already freaking out because he saw the gas leaving the hole.

"The ground's cracking!" Will shouted in fear and Chick yelled at the same time: "Earthquake!"

"Quick, shut it off! Shut it off! We hit a gas pocket!"

"We got pressure out the ass!" Max was shouting in fear.

"Max, get your helmet on! She's gonna blow!" Harry was still trying to get him out.

"Ah! Oh, Jesus, I'm cooking!" Max couldn't get his brain or body to work because he was so scared.

"Max, bail! Come on!" Chick screamed in panic.

"This is it! Harry! I'm bailing!" Max finally decided to bolt from the armadillo, but he was two seconds too late. The armadillo was launched up into the air and was decimated due to the extreme gas pressure.

"MAX!" Harry screamed for their friend.

"Goodbye, Max. Take care, buddy." Rockhound mentioned quietly.

"Get a hold of Truman. Prepare the world for bad news." Harry told the others.

"Guess what, guys? It's time to embrace the horror. Look. We got front-row tickets to the end of the Earth." Rockhound tried to make a joke and everybody just glared at him.

"All right look jackass, we just killed everybody on the planet you want to make another joke?!" Nathan growled finally snapping from the pressure and Rock pouted slightly.

Harry was kneeling at the hole when he frowned in confusion. He was hearing static through his radio. It sounded like words trying to come through. He slowly stood up and looked around and noticed the static wasn't coming from the people around him. He looked up at a cliff and his eyes widened in ecstatic hope and he let out a victorious scream.

"Way to go, baby!" Bear shouted in glee and AJ was practically giddy.

"Harry!" AJ shouted over the radio.

The whole drill team, Will Sharpe and Nathan Gruber snapped to look up and saw the other armadillo coming up and over the cliff.

"Yo, Harry! What's up, baby?" Bear called in absolute joy and the other drillers started shouting in happiness and hope. There was now a chance that the planet wouldn't end.

Will huffed in disbelief when he saw the other armadillo show up and looked at Nathan who smirked sadly.

"I did NOT survive a shuttle crash only for you to kill us by driving off of a cliff because you got too excited! SLOW DOWN YA CRAZY BASTARD!" Kathy scolded AJ who laughed and nodded.

Will heard a British accent and he made a grab for Nathan's arm.

"Nathan, please tell me you heard that…?" Will didn't want to get his hopes and he closed his eyes.

"Oh yeah, and she sounds pissed." Nathan was now grinning like an idiot.

"Hey, Harry. You miss me?" AJ asked as he popped out of the armadillo first and Harry had the biggest grin he'd ever have.

"AJ, I got just five words for ya. Damn glad to see ya, boy!" Harry shouted and AJ huffed in laughter.

"That's six words." AJ informed him and Harry shook his head with a laugh. AJ was then knocked out of the way by an irritated computer technician and Harry's eyes brightened upon seeing her.

"I am never driving with you three EVER AGAIN! ESPECIALLY WITH YOU BEHIND THE WHEEL!" She pointed warningly to AJ who shrugged with a smirk. "Somebody get me out of this damn death trap!" Kathy McDaniels complained and Chick laughed and helped her off of the armadillo. "I have my computer gear, and ready to go sync up Freedom's systems. First I may need some help to your infirmary, I seem to have screwed up my ankle at some point."

"I was just on my way to the Shuttle to handle a little problem. Hey Russian guy."

"My name is Lev…" Lev glared at Nathan Gruber who nodded sheepishly.

"I just call him Roger Ramjet." Kathy muttered to Harry who snorted in laughter. "Hey Stamper how are you doing?"

"A helluva lot better than I was a few minutes ago." Harry grabbed her into a hug. "Maybe you can keep that Colonel of yours from doing any more stupid shit."

"McDaniels you ready to go?" Nathan asked her and she sighed tiredly and nodded. Nathan, Kathy and Lev all managed to get Rockhound onto the shuttle and duct taped onto a chair.

"So did he finally do something way too stupid?" Kathy asked and Nathan nodded silently. "I am not surprised this happened, however, I am surprised that you lot have not 'yet' tied him up earlier. I'm sure he drove you all insane for hours on end. That just tells me you all have the patience of saints."

"I'm actually totally okay with you tying me up." Rockhound leered at her and Kathy glared at him.

"Missed a spot." She muttered and grabbed another piece of tape and slammed it onto his mouth. "Much better." Nathan huffed in laughter.

"If I am not needed Colonel Sharpe asked me to help Pilot Watts with the shuttle prep." Lev mentioned and headed off to where he needed to be.

"Okay McDaniels let's get you to Medbay." Nathan helped her walk and he sat her on a stretcher and he check her right ankle with a cringe. "Jesus lady, did you try to punt the damn shuttle?!"

"I'm not sure what actually happened to it. It was a bit chaotic for a while. I got out of my chair and helped Oscar with his helmet. Fat lot of good it did though, he still ended up dead." Kathy looked down sadly. "Tim grabbed my arm and shoved me further back, that may have been when it happened. I tried to warn him about debris but it slammed through him. Then Bear grabbed me before I was sucked out."

Nathan Gruber swallowed sadly hearing what she had seen as the shuttle crashed. He wrapped her ankle and handed her a pole that she could use for a crutch.

Meanwhile outside Will Sharpe kept looking between the drilling and the shuttle before Harry rolled his eyes in exasperation.

"SHARPE!" He shouted getting the younger man's attention. "Just go! I think we can handle not being in adult supervision long enough for you to see her!"

Will nodded and bolted towards the shuttle. He removed his helmet and saw Nathan suiting back up to return outside.

"How is she?" Will asked worriedly.

"Her right ankle is twisted to hell and back, but I don't think her outer wounds match to the ones on the inside. She saw Tony, Max and Noonan get sucked out. She tried to save Choi but failed. Tim saved her life but she couldn't do the same for him. Like the rest of us, she's probably going to be messed up for life."

"Where is she?" Will asked with a sad sigh and Nathan smirked wryly.

"She's already syncing the shuttle. She may be emotionally and mentally drained but damn she doesn't give up until her work is done."

Will smirked sadly and nodded. Nathan went back outside to supervise the drilling and Will entered the control terminal room and he saw Kathy limping with a pole working on the computers.

"Hey." He offered quietly and she looked at him and nodded to him in greetings. He stopped her from doing anymore work and he turned her around to face him. "I thought…" He swallowed back the tears that tried to flow again. He couldn't get the words out so he just pressed his lips onto hers. He pulled away and he saw the tears on her cheeks also. "I love you…" He mentioned quietly then huffed in laughter. "I love you, and I don't even know 'when' it happened."

"Sharpe…" Kathy started and he looked at her.

"As much as I love hearing you say my last name like that…I would love to hear your accent say my first name." Will stated softly.

"Maybe later, the job is not done yet and we still have miles to go before we sleep." Kathy sighed tiredly and Will nodded and started away feeling heart broken again. "Come here, ya stupid yank." She scolded him and he looked back and she pulled him into a hug and she sighed in content. "I missed you to." She leaned closed and kissed him and he let out of sigh of happiness. "Go watch those boys of ours to make sure they don't blow more shit up." She warned the man in front of her and he let out a huff of laughter before he kissed her one last time and headed outside.

Kathy jacked into the main controls of the shuttle and added the information she had obtained from the Independence. She then crossed it over to the Freedom and the computers started to fuse together and the data finally finished. The Independence finally synced properly and she sighed in relief. She wiped the sweat off of her face and she powered down her systems and she smirked.

"And that's all she wrote." She muttered to herself and limped with her pole to where Jennifer and Lev were working on getting the shuttle working. "Hey guys, I'm done with my computing. Did you need any help here?"

"We're good McDaniels, thanks though." Jennifer smiled at her and she directed Lev further. "No Lev the right engine hub." Jennifer stated and saw Kathy turning away. "Kathy…" She called again and the British Computer Technician turned to look back. "I'm really glad you aren't dead." She admitted quietly and Kathy huffed in laughter and shook her head. "Will was an absolute terror to work with." She saw the British woman look at her confusedly. "He loves you, and seeing Independence crash almost killed him."

"Thanks for telling me Jennifer." Kathy smirked awkwardly and Jennifer laughed this time.


	18. Drawing Straws and Broken Hearts

A few minutes later Will and Nathan came back in and got the things ready for the nuke. The looks on their faces were of stunned exaltation.

"They did it…they drilled to eight-hundred two feet. We need to get the nuke prepped for the drop." Will admitted with a quiet laugh before he pulled Kathy in for a kiss. Nathan grinned at his friend and Jennifer smiled in relief. "We have thirty-eight minutes until we hit zero-barrier. It'll be close but we may be able to pull this shit off."

"Need any help out there?" Kathy asked him and Will smirked and shook his head.

"I would feel better if you were in here to make sure that Rockhound doesn't eat his way through his restraints." Will admitted making all of them laugh lightly.

Twenty minutes later Kathy felt something rumbling the shuttle and she limped over to where Jennifer was working.

"What the hell was that?!" She asked with wide eyes and Jennifer shrugged.

"It felt like an earthquake." Jennifer admitted quietly and Kathy paled.

"I need to get out there!" She shouted and Jennifer tried to stop her.

"McDaniels stop! They would have said something over the radio!"

"If something happened, it could've been too fast for them to contact us! I NEED TO SEE IF THEY'RE OKAY!" Kathy didn't want to lose the friends she had made in the last month.

Kathy shook off Jennifer's hand and limped to the launch lift when it started to come back up by itself meaning that somebody was coming in. Will Sharpe's face was absolutely stricken and there were tears on his face.

"What happened?!" Kathy asked getting freaked out and Will grabbed her into as tight a hug as he could with his suit.

"Gruber's dead." He whispered into her temple.

"Oh god no…" Kathy's eyes closed as tears fell. She looked at Will and saw the despair in his eyes and her own widened. "What else happened…?" She asked worriedly. She had known Sherlock and Mycroft long enough for some of their deductive skills to rub off on her. There was something bigger than Nathan Gruber dying.

"The detonator was destroyed…" Will admitted brokenly and Kathy let out a huff of horror.

"Oh god…oh my god." Kathy sat down on a cargo bin with a look of panic. "Who's staying?" She asked going pale and saw the confused look on Will's face. "I talked to Tim Halsey about what would happen if something happened to the detonator. It needs to be done manually…" She offered and Will nodded and lowered his head.

"The drillers are going to draw straws." Will informed her and she let out an exasperated squawk of anger.

Soon after the remaining drillers, two NASA flight crew members, a Russian Cosmonaut and a British Computer Technician were standing in the cargo room.

"It takes two people to fly this thing. So, either we all stay and die…or you guys draw straws." Will explained, and they heard Rockhound still taped to the chair.

"I say we all stay and die, but that's just me." Rockhound admitted when nobody paid attention to him.

"Who the hell took the tape off?" Kathy asked tiredly and Lev cleared his throat nervously.

"He was about to eat it…" Lev offered and Kathy rolled her eyes at the people around her.

"I'll draw." AJ admitted with a nod. "Let's draw."

"Nobody's gunna draw straws." Harry Stamper sighed. "I'll stay and take care of it."

"Well I can't live with that Harry," Chick offered quietly and Harry glared at him.

"Nobody asked you."

" _No way_ I will let you volunteer for this!" Lev shouted angrily. "Not so I can go back to my home country like the man who _didn't_ volunteer. No way!"

Kathy shook her head at the men around her bickering like little children.

"Hey, man, let's draw, and see who's gunna stay up here and dance." Bear finally calmed the group down until Rockhound decided to talk again.

"Guys, I know you guys think I'm crazy right now…but I would really like this responsibility." Rockhound admitted and Kathy quirked an eyebrow of disbelief at the man.

Will Sharpe held a handful of wires in his hand and Chick sighed and grabbed one of them. Kathy reached forward and Will's eyes went wide and he pulled the wires away from her.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Will asked her in angered shock.

"I finished my job and synced the ship. My work is done, and that makes me as expendable as them." Kathy frowned at his reaction.

"You are 'not' doing this." Will growled feeling his emotional turmoil hitting a wall.

"That is 'not' your call." Kathy glared at him and tore a wire from his hand before he could stop her.

Bear, AJ, Lev and Harry all drew a wire still looking at Kathy with even more respect.

"Is this good or bad?" Lev asked as everybody looked around. AJ's face was just pale as hell and Kathy let out a saddened huff of air.

"Oh, man." AJ stated in shock and he shrugged. "Everybody's gotta die sometime, right? I guess I'm the guy who gets to do it saving the world." AJ tried to make a joke and it fell flat as everybody looked down at the ground sadly.

Kathy's face turned into a worried frown when she looked at her wire.

"AJ…I need to see something." She whispered to him and he looked at her not sure why she was whispering and she put her wire up to AJ's and his eyes went wide in horrified denial. Her wire was less than inch shorter and she huffed in sarcastic laughter and tears filled her eyes. "Yeah, that's what I thought…"

"Oh my god…" AJ shook his head in denial starting to freak out.

"Bear?" Kathy motioned to the large black man who had saved her life on Independence.

"What's up?" He asked quietly when he saw her push her finger to her lips. She showed him what she had just found and Bear's eyes went wide. "Oh my god…"

"I need you to stop Sharpe from doing anything stupid." Tears were falling down her cheeks. She swallowed convulsively and Harry Stamper came over curiously. "Stamper don't say anything…" She informed him and he paled in horror that she had actually lost the draw and his eyes closed in sadness. "Best part is I already know what to do. Lift Press Hold." Kathy showed them the manual detonator with an almost silent huff of hysteric laugh.

"Sharpe is going to be pissed off…" Harry added quietly and she laughed this time feeling the panic flow through her body. "I'll take her down…" Harry nodded to AJ to help him prep the cargo lift. "AJ, always thought of you as a son. Always." Harry mentioned quietly and AJ's eyes started to tear up. "I'd be damn proud to have you marry Grace."

"Harry…" AJ knew what Harry was telling him now, he wasn't about to let Kathy do this.

"Goodbye son…" Harry pulled him into a hug and AJ shook his head.

Bear saw Harry Stamper take Kathy to the lift and they entered. The lift sealed shut after the two of them got their suits on. Bear saw this as the moment to inform Colonel Will Sharpe about what had happened.

"Colonel?" Bear asked quietly and Will looked over and saw Kathy in the lift instead of AJ Frost. His face fell like a rock and he looked at Bear in panic.

"What the fuck?!" He shouted but Bear held him in place and Will fought him as hard as he could. "LET ME GO! KATHY?! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!" Will screamed in fear.

"She lost the draw by less than an inch." Bear offered quietly and Will shook his head in denial. "I'm sorry."

Will Sharpe thought he knew what heart break felt like when he saw Independence crash. No that wasn't heart break, not like what he was feeling now. This, no this felt like somebody shoving a pointed device through his chest and slowly carving out his heart. Will screamed once more and slammed his elbow into Bear's stomach as hard as could. The man let go and Will charged forward and slid to the floor as the lift lowered.

"KATHY! DON'T DO THIS!" He begged her feeling a sob catch in throat. "I LOVE YOU PLEASE DON'T DO THIS!" He screamed as she mouthed the words 'I'm sorry' and he let out a choked sob and the lift disappeared from view and he let out a sobbing scream as he started to bang his fist against the side of it.

"Will?" Jennifer asked quietly as tears fell down her cheeks and he shoved past her angrily and started to prep the shuttle for the launch. "Will?!" She tried again and he shot her a vicious look that had her take a step back in fear.

"Don't! Just DON'T!" He growled at her and he kept working as the tears fell down his cheeks.

"I'm so sorry." Jennifer whispered sadly and went to work on the launch sequence.


	19. Second Chances and Dammit Harry Stamper!

Kathy was standing beside Harry breathing through her tears. They reached the bottom and she exited the lift.

"Just, tell Quinn that I'm sorry. If you see Mycroft, Sherlock and John tell them that I love them. Can you do that please?"

"Yeah, sure kid." Harry nodded and grabbed her air hose out of her suit and he shoved her back into the lift. "Give this to Truman, make sure he gets it." Harry was now outside and she was ripping her helmet off.

"Stamper?! What are you doing?!" She screamed at him in fear and he huffed in laughter.

"If you think I would let you do this, then you aren't as smart as I thought you are." Harry smirked sadly and she shook her head. "You didn't see Sharpe when the Independence crashed, and you didn't see him when he first heard your voice on that cliff. If I let you do this, then I get to see him fall apart later back on Earth…"

"Harry Stamper you cannot do this! You have a family I don't!"

"You got a family kid. I already told you my guys like you, and NASA likes you. If anybody can scare my boys into submission it's you. Take care of Sharpe I doubt he would last a day without you." Harry smiled and hit the lift. "Goodbye kiddo."

Kathy screamed at him while tears fell down her cheeks again and she disappeared from sight. The next thing she knew the lift opened up with her inside the shuttle and Rockhound looked down at her now free from his restraints because he needed to be in his seat for launch.

"What happened?" He asked in surprise and Chick took one look at the girl's tear stained cheeks and he growled.

"That stupid stubborn son of a…" He grumbled and reached down and hauled her up to her feet and AJ helped him with her to the cockpit and sat her down on one of the seats.

Will came barreling in after setting the dials and he froze seeing her and he looked at AJ in silence.

"Harry is taking her place, whether she agrees or not." AJ offered quietly and Will Sharpe nodded while still looking at Kathy in her seat.

Will went back to work but when he passed Kathy's chair he lightly gripped her shoulder and she looked up at him. 'We are talking about this later' is what his facial expression told her and he did not look remotely amused and she nodded silently still feeling the tears falling down her cheeks. Will leaned down and placed a tender kiss to her temple and he got back to work.

' _Hi, Gracie. Hi, honey. Grace, I know I promise you I was coming home…'_ Harry's voice echoed through the cockpit and Kathy's eyes closed knowing that it was supposed to be her down there not Harry.

" _I don't…under-understand,"_ Grace sounded slightly confused but at the same time she sounded resigned.

' _Looks like I'm gunna have to break that promise.'_ Harry admitted quietly and Kathy shook her head.

" _I, uhm…I lied to you, too, when I told you that I didn't want to be like you. Because I am like you. And everything good that I have inside of me, I have from you. I love you so much, daddy. I'm_ so _proud of you…and I'm so scared."_

"I can still get out there and force him back inside…" Kathy started to fidget in her seat and Will hauled around and glared at her.

"Don't you fucking move out of that seat!" He growled at her warningly and she swallowed.

 _"I know it, baby, but there won't be anything to be scared of soon. Gracie, I want you to know that A.J. saved us. He did."_ Harry was still speaking and now AJ was getting emotional. " _I want you to tell Chick that I couldn't have done it without him. None of it. I want you to take care of A.J….I wish I could be there to walk you down the aisle. But I'll…I'll look in on you from time to time, okay, honey? Don't let that crazy British girl think that this was her fault. Tell her that it didn't matter who drew it, I was always going to do it."_

Kathy felt new sobs exit her body and Will closed his eyes hearing how much she was hurting.

" _I love you, Grace."_

" _I love you, too, daddy."_

" _Gotta go now, honey."_

After a few misfires with the shuttle they finally took off and Kathy closed her eyes in despair knowing that despite what he said it still felt like it was her fault.

Will was pulling the shuttle away from the asteroid and he gave Harry Stamper one last look of respect and gratitude.

"Thank you, Harry." He whispered knowing that Harry had given him Kathy back and he would be thankful for eternity.

They were now a safe distance from the blast zone but nothing had happened. Will shook his head and started to reach for the throttle.

"Something's not right, too much time has gone by. We're going back and do it ourselves," Will heard Chick talking and his hand froze but then he lightly touched the throttle control.

"Colonel, we're just asking you, _one more minute_!" Chick snapped desperately.

"Harry will do it." AJ admitted with a nod of belief. "He doesn't know how to fail."

Will's hand was still on the control throttle when Kathy opened her eyes and looked over at him.

"Will…" She stated quietly but with strength. "Hand off the throttle…now." She ordered him sternly and she couldn't see the small smile on his face as he pulled his hand away from the control.

Then there was a massive bright light that filled the cockpit making everybody look away and cover or close their eyes at the intensity.

"Yo, Harry, you the man." Bear admitted quietly with tears falling down his cheeks.

A few minutes later Will Sharpe looked at Jennifer Watts.

"Watts you got the com." He informed her sternly and she nodded taking over the flying with a pale face knowing that he was going to probably kill McDaniels.

Will got out of his chair and he walked over to Kathy's chair and grabbed her arm.

"You…with me…now…" He mentioned as calmly as he could but everybody could see the throbbing vein on his neck. He forced her to stand up and he marched out of the cockpit and into a more secluded area.

"So who wants to make the starting bet? Twenty says the fight ends up with them having sex somewhere in the shuttle." Rockhound mentioned making everybody snort in laughter.

"I'm not taking that bet." Chick muttered with a smirk.


	20. Home At Last

Will Sharpe paced trying to calm down but he couldn't seem to get a control over his emotions.

"Why….just why?!" He asked angrily and Kathy tried to swallow her tears.

"Do you think you could live with the guilt that you let somebody else die that wasn't supposed to?! My wire was slightly shorter than AJ's and I wasn't about to let him do something that would've been my job!"

Will leaned over and placed his forehead against hers feeling tears falling down his cheeks again.

"Do you think you could live with the fact that somebody you loved had been lost three times?" Will asked her and she looked confused. "You slipped and fell towards that flash fire on the station." Will reminded her what he had seen. "Your shuttle smashed into pieces after I heard you scream for the others." Will took in a deep breath. "Then I had to watch you lowering in the lift going to your death." Will took in another deep breath. "You do not get to complain that you didn't die…"

"I wasn't even supposed to be here." Kathy admitted quietly and Will looked surprised. "I was standing when we crashed, I was almost sucked out with Tony, Max and Freddy." She offered and saw Will pale even more. "Tim shoved me towards my chair, then he got impaled by debris. I lost my grip but Bear grabbed me and held onto me as we crashed."

Will silenced her with a kiss and she started to react to the kiss and Will smiled against her lips.

"We have thirteen hours before we land." He whispered nuzzling her lips. "Whatever will we do to keep entertained?"

"Somebody owes me a dance." Kathy smirked shyly and Will huff in laughter.

"You heard that huh?" He blushed and Kathy nodded. "Come here." He held her closely and they started to dance while floating.

"I'm not sure this is called dancing." Kathy teased the man and he rolled his eyes.

"Well there is sex…" He mentioned casually pressing his lips against her neck.

"Where Rockhound can walk in on us."

"Good point, no sex then." Will grumbled and she laughed.

"I'm good with just this." Kathy sighed feeling Will hugging her to his body and rubbing her back.

After the allotted time they were approaching the landing strip.

"This is shuttle Freedom coming in, and Kennedy you never looked so good." Will admitted quietly making Jennifer smile in agreement.

"I've never told anyone this, but I hate flying. So it'd be awful shame to die now." Chick mentioned as they got closer to landing.

"That's easy for you to say; I owe a hundred grand to a fat-ass loan shark that I spent on a stripper named Molly Mounds." Rockhound complained and Kathy snorted in laughter.

"Ugh…that is bad." Chick made a face and Kathy laughed again.

"You know, I'm not even surprised." Kathy shook her head making the others snort in laughter.

"I'm sure you could put her to shame." Rockhound grinned at her with a leer. She shot him a scathing look.

"Do you want me to get the tape again?" She asked warningly.

"You really like tying me up…" Rockhound smirked smugly at her and she glared more.

"AJ you get to fill in for Oscar, hit him." Kathy mentioned calmly and AJ reached over and whacked Rockhound in the back of the head.

"OW MAN!" Rockhound whined then pouted at Kathy who snorted in laughter.

"Either get hit by AJ, or get killed by Sharpe." She shrugged at him and he sighed in defeat.

"Welcome home, Astronauts." Will stated after they landed and Jennifer punched the release button and they looked out at Kennedy silently.

"Okay we're heroes now guys, so that thing about me with the gun on asteroid, let's keep that under wraps right?" Rockhound mentioned casually and Kathy looked at him worriedly.

"Gun?" She asked with an unsure smirk.

"Long story." Chick grumbled darkly making her huff in laughter.


	21. A Future Worth Living

The group finally left the shuttle and Kathy watched as Chick's son and ex wife greeted him. Jennifer Watts was grabbed up by her husband with a hug and a kiss. Bear found his mother and wife and they all hugged. Even Rockhound was making out with a rather well endowed blonde woman, Kathy was sure it was Molly Mounds. Kathy watched in saddened joy as Grace and AJ jumped each other with a massive hug. Lev looked around and let himself be led over to the paramedics to be checked over. Kathy sighed suddenly feeling alone she limped past Sharpe who was crouching on the ground with his arms around two little girls. There was a woman standing beside him with another man beside.

'Must be the ex and the new husband.'

She couldn't help herself as she passed Will.

"You're lucky Sharpe…" She started and he looked at her confusedly and saw the teasing smile. "They look nothing like you…" She ended and he huffed in exasperation.

"Shut up McDaniels." He warned her but the soft smile on his face threw off his warnings and his ex wife Alice gave him a coy grin.

"Really? Somebody that can finally keep a steady pace with you?" Alice asked with a laugh and he sighed in defeat and looked at her.

Kathy was finally checked out with her right ankle. It had been twisted to hell and back like Gruber had said but the quick thinking with the padding in the leg of her suit saved her from needing surgery, or amputation. They put a cast on and gave her a real pair of crutches and she looked over seeing Dan Truman talking to AJ and Grace. She hobbled over to him and interrupted.

"Stamper wanted you to have this." Kathy admitted handling Dan the 'for all mankind' patch that Harry had torn off of his suit and tossed at her.

"He did huh?" Dan asked with a sad laugh. "Nice to see you back in one 'relative' piece."

"God I'm not sure what to do with a Truman that jokes." Kathy grumbled darkly making AJ huff in laughter. "Grace it was supposed to be me…Harry he…"

Grace cut her off with a hug.

"In the month that you've known him, did he seem the type to just give up and admit defeat in an argument?" Grace asked her with tears falling down her cheeks.

"No." Kathy nodded in agreement also crying.

"Ms Stamper?" Will Sharpe approached this time. "Colonel Willie Sharpe United States Air Force requesting the permission to shake the hand of the daughter of the bravest man I've ever met."

Grace braved a smile for him as they shook hands and he sent a wink at Kathy who blushed.

Kathy heard a familiar throat being cleared and she turned to see her best friend standing there.

"Quinn." She greeted Ronald Quincy who just grabbed her into a tight hug.

"I can't even tell you what it was like when I heard the radio during the crash." He whispered sadly and kissed her cheek.

Three days later the remaining survivors were given clean bills of health and relatively okayish mental health considering they all were going to be depressed with immense survivor's guilt and nightmares to last the rest of their lives.

Dan Truman approached Kathy who was going through the data she had obtained and he huffed in laughter getting her attention.

"You save the world, and you just get back to work." He sat beside her and almost knock over her crutches. "Sorry." He admitted embarrassedly and she rolled her eyes. "So what's next for the heroic computer technician from England?"

"Back home I guess, I don't like leaving Sherlock and John to their own devices for too long. Mycroft can only do so much damage control alone."

"Funny you mention leaving." Dan mentioned trying to find a way to say what he wanted. "NASA could use somebody that can arrange an armadillo to jump over a canyon with nothing but a computer tablet and some luck."

"Did you just offer me a job?" Kathy's eyes were wide.

"Yeah I know right? Surprised the hell outta me too." Dan smirked slightly.

Later Will Sharpe had asked her if she was going to take the job. A job which would keep her in America and away from her home. However a job that would keep her near him. She wasn't sure of her answer and he had walked away slightly hurt. She then got on her computer and jacked into Mycroft's computer.

"Kath! It's great to see you!" Mycroft actually smiled at her in relief. "So what is the reason for this impromptu call?"

"Truman offered me a job."

"Does this job offer permit you to stay around this Colonel I saw in your bed?" Mycroft asked with a smirk and she blushed.

"I don't want to leave you alone to deal with Sherlock and John's antics, and my house is over there and all of my things…" She was starting to ramble and Mycroft interrupted her.

"Kathy, what do you want?" He asked her point blank and she sighed in defeat. "I see." He nodded with a sad smile. "You've been taking care of Sherlock, John and myself for decades. I think it's time you took care of yourself for once." He admitted and she looked at him unsure. "If you love him, then do not let yourself lose him." He offered sagely and Kathy huffed in laughter.

"Whatever happened to 'caring is not an advantage'?" She teased her friend and he blushed.

"I think a giant asteroid about to destroy the world puts your perspective of said world into a different direction."

"I'm going to miss you three."

"Well it's not like you can't see us anytime you hack into our computers." Mycroft teased her and this time she blushed. "The three of us love you Kath, and Sherlock and John would want you to be happy."

After her talk with Mycroft she jacked into John Watson's computer and he gave a startled shriek when he passed his computer that suddenly turned on. Kathy started laughing at the sound he made and he glared at her good naturedly.

"Sherlock! Kathy's on the computer!"

Sherlock approached the computer and smirked slightly at seeing her alive and well.

"Good to see you're alive." Sherlock started and frowned seeing the happy tears in her eyes. "You're not coming back."

"What?" John looked at Sherlock in surprise and back at Kathy who huffed in laughter.

"Yeah Sherlock, I'm not…" She admitted making John squawk indignantly. "Something happened that I never even thought…"

"You fell in love." Sherlock deduced and Kathy blushed.

"You should really stop deducing for a few seconds." She scolded him and he huffed in laughter.

"Who is he?" John asked curiously and Kathy McDaniels smirked slightly.

"Colonel Sharpe."

"The one that flew shuttle Freedom?" John asked and Kathy frowned worriedly. "Sweetie, you are all famous. You knew you would incredibly famous when you got back right?"

"Honestly I never even thought about it, I was too worried about not dying and ending the world."

"Does he feel the same?" Sherlock was still on topic even if John and Kathy were now talking about something else. He had always done this since they were teenagers. John and Kathy both rolled their eyes at him.

"I'm pretty sure he does. If the freak out he had on the shuttle is anything to go by."

"Well I can't think of a reason for her to come back. You John?" Sherlock finalized and John snorted in laughter.

"All I can say is 'if he hurts or breaks your heart' he will have the British government, a sociopathic genius, an ex-military British medic, and the smartest man on the planet all gunning for him."

"I love you guys, but I think I can handle Will."

"We'll miss you Kath, but it's not like you can't just jack into our computers and see us whenever you want." Sherlock teased her and she nodded.

Kathy told Dan Truman that she would accept the job and he smirked in relief. She then heard that Will Sharpe had gone home. She hacked into his personal file again and found the address and she had an escort from NASA to his house. It was quaint, but still a decent size. She saw his truck in the driveway and she smiled nervously at the man who drove her.

"Need me to stay?" He asked and she shook her head at him and got out.

She approached the front door and knocked loudly. The door opened and she saw Will standing there in a tee shirt and jeans.

"McDaniels?" He asked seeing that she was just staring at him.

"That fits nicely." She muttered to herself and he rolled his eyes.

"Kathy!" He tried again and she snapped her eyes up to meet his. "What are you doing here?"

"I told Truman I'd take the job." She admitted and he nodded with a neutral expression. She saw the micro expression of joy within his eyes and she decided to continue talking. "I had some thinking to do, I mean after everything that happened…I had some sense knocked into me by thee Englishmen back home…to realize that I was in love with you. Actually I think I already knew it, I just needed to hear somebody else say it first…"

She was rambling more and more and Will Sharpe placed his hand over her lips silencing her with a smile that lit up his face.

"McDaniels, just shut up and let me kiss you."

"I like that idea." She nodded in agreement and he kissed her tenderly.

They were married a year later and a year after that they had a son whom they named Harold Oscar Sharpe.


End file.
